


come with me friday, don't say maybe

by zialless



Category: Niall Horan (Musician), One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - High School, Beverly Hills, California, Friends to Lovers, Lifeguard Niall, Los Angeles, Love Notes, M/M, rich kids with nothing but fake friends!, there's dogs! doesn't everyone love dogs!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-25 06:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10758684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zialless/pseuds/zialless
Summary: it's the year 1999 and niall has big plans for the summer; starting with that new drive-in theater. it's simple enough for him. but add a couple of love notes being shoved in his locker, a "new" old next door neighbour, a broken car, and an ignorant ex-girlfriend - it sounds more interesting.





	come with me friday, don't say maybe

**Author's Note:**

> hiii!! this is for the high school au challenge. glad to be a part of it! considering i never joined anything like this in my 4 years of writing. gotta do this for the ziall gang thooo.
> 
> i had no beta and i did my best to edit, but reading 36k worth of words can be a lot, and i even cut some stuff out too so sorry about my grammar/spelling. sometimes word doesnt red-line stuff like "an" when it's supposed to be "and" hehe... hope you enjoy this fic, i love the 90s era! i should make a playlist of the few songs mentioned in here...
> 
> disclaimer: people/places mentioned arent affiliated with this fic. (lets also pretend that green day played in L.A. in 1999 tho i doubt anyone's gonna fact check anything lol but the big foot pizza from pizza hut was real!!)
> 
> title comes from lyrics in teenage dirtbag by wheatus!

Niall wasn't one for cramming in, not when Jade's party has captured him and all he can think about is how much of a blast he's going to have at her mansion to be exact—to have the best party of the year that Portello High would ever hear about. What annoyed him was his dad who wouldn't let him stay at Jade's past midnight. It isn't like he's going anywhere when they were good family friends—most of them were anyway. All of their father's have connections with his dad. It's good to have relations around Beverly Hills. Or rather, it's such a small area in Los Angeles that you knew your neighbours. No one stood out, everybody always loved gatherings—except this person in particular that Niall didn't want to really think about. He'll call him _Dash_.

Dash seemed out of place. Yeah, he had the slick back hair sometimes, the fancy polos from Ralph Lauren itself, fancy suits that Niall could relate to—was probably tailored to fit him, and had a pool just like the rest of them. But Dash was no socialite. Well, what Niall really means to say is that his family is social, but it seemed like Dash never was; it seemed like he was put there to be pretty for his family. And who knows what he does when he gets home? He probably listens to that stupid band Nirvanas that Niall hears in his head (he's definitely never had that kind of music playing in his house before so it's definitely Dash playing it in his room) and he probably drinks his dad's locked up beer or reads about the Economy. Not that that's weird, Niall totally respects people's decisions and choices.

But last year in the tenth grade, there were rumours across school hallways about Dash running off for the summer from May. It's how Niall came up with the nickname Dash. Somebody had to make something up for his absence so running away like he was in a dash it was. Oh, but his escapade happened during the end of the school year so it wasn't much of a big deal. He did come back, somewhat different. Niall doesn't know him that much to judge. Most of the time, everyone in Beverley Hills was asking his sister where Dash had run off to or Niall, only because they're neighbours. Yeah, Niall lives right beside Dash.

Dash's yard was always kept. But to be very honest, everyone's house in Beverly Hills is always kept right. No leaf was out of place in their line of hedge, grass would always be mowed accordingly so lawns would always have that lighter pattern of grass then the next stripe would be dark. Niall would wonder how their gardener would do it. He'd stare from his window and watch him like a weirdo. His pool never had a leaf in it and he knows this from all the times Niall had found himself looking across (spying is the right term to call it) to gaze at its unrealistic blue colour.

So there was all this shock coming from girls and boys all around, including Niall himself when he heard that Dash (let's call him by his real name now: Zayn), was actually here at a party—the party of the year. He came with his cousin, Haider who only seemed to be his friend around school. Haider was definitely wicked cool. All the girls loved him; always leaving love notes in his locker while they pitied Zayn who Haider would reject parties for so it was always rare to see Haider out at one if Zayn wasn't with him. It's a Saturday afternoon on one of the hottest days of the year and it's only May; no doubt people out of the ordinary would be outside.

Niall had his feet in the pool, drink in one hand. He sat near the stereo so he could hear Jade's mix-tape properly and not the gossip about Leigh and Jordan breaking up for what seemed to be the twelfth time now. Except, this time—Leigh is breaking up with Jordan!

Niall always wanted to try and make a mix-tape. He didn't have the motive or tolerance to do it so he always gave a thumbs-up to anyone that spent hours making one, so that meant the majority of L.A. Everyone did him favours by making him tapes. Sometimes they had stupid background sounds but he had to tolerate them because it apparently takes hours to make one single tape. He has plenty to listen to the whole night away.

"Hey, Pres!" Harry greets him with his school title as their student body president. He's coming up to the edge of the pool with a Hawaiian floral shirt and a cocktail in a red solo cup, probably using grape Mad Dog wine. Harry was probably the life of groups. He had enthusiasm for literally everything. Like suicides at gym class. He dresses very flamboyant and his hair reminds him of Fabian. "What are you doing this summer?"

"Working my butt off for a car." Niall says with disgust. His dad had already spent so much money on their yacht at the docks in Malibu that he's not spending a dime on Niall's endeavours for a car.

"Fancy. What are you getting?" Harry rests his chin over his crossed elbows.

"I was thinking a Jeep Wrangler." Niall says it like he's in a state of dreaming. It was beautiful piece of body to be driving in L.A. He wants it in white, cover off the roof, feel the breeze in his hair—

Only to be interrupted by an obnoxious laugh. "You're definitely up in the clouds." Then he stops to add, "But I can get you a convertible. A '95 Jaguar XJS for $300."

"Whoa!" Niall jumped on his feet. His eyes nearly blew out from his eyes. A Jaguar? Never mind the model being 4 years old—for $300? "What's the catch?" Niall knocks the glass of juice on Harry's chest.

"It's in very _very_ bad shape." Harry shrugs. Niall rolls his eyes as Harry tries to open his mouth to get some words in. "B-but with the right set of tools and hardware, we can fix it up! The Malik's have this amazing auto-shop around L.A." Who the hell are the Malik's? 

"I'd rather not bother them." Niall looks to the palm leaves of the tree three streets down rustling and swaying. "Besides, I wouldn't even want to fix a car up from scrap."

"It seems you need it that bad."

"I think I'm the only guy in this city who doesn't have one to take a girl—or a boy, out to a movie." Niall's lips twist in distaste. "Much comes to worse, that drive-in theatre on Paramount Boulevard is opening in the beginning of July and I hear everyone's going."

"Just use your parent's car, as usual. Problem solved!" Harry cheers. "Now come into the pool."

"Okay, hold on." Niall puts his glass up on the table where the stereo is. "I gotta put sunscreen." His shoulders and nose are pink. If it gets any darker and redder, it'll sting and start to peel. It's May—not Christmas or Halloween. He shouldn't be out and about looking like Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.

Niall rubs a wad down his arm. He continues to rub it until the layer of white is gone and he switches to his other arm, only to see Jordan with Zayn—an arm around, walking by the pool. That's surprising—the most anti-social guy with a popular guy are all buddy-buddy. Niall squeezes more onto his palm, and slaps it onto his chest where he smears everything around his torso. He nods his head along.

_Downtown the young ones are going._

_Downtown the young ones are growing!_

_We're the kids in America!_

"Whoa—oh!" The exclaims and the loud splash connected aside from Niall's sudden cringe from the splash. That wasn't the song at all.

Zayn fell. No one expected that. But from Jordan's obnoxious laughing, the moment connected like two puzzle pieces. Leigh is staring with so much hate from across before she could scoff and go to Jade who's eating a burger. Then he hears coughing and a lot of splashing.

"Zayn can't swim, you idiot!" Niall hears in rage from Haider, and everyone's up on their feet trying to figure out what the heck just happened.

It's because of his summer job that he's had for a year now that it becomes an instinct for Niall to dive right into the pool and save Zayn. No one really ever drowns in the pool. The water always drives a person up so regardless a person knows how to swim or not, there's always a chance that they'll be out in the water before sinking. He's not worried as much when Zayn's trying to tread the water. But it's in the worse way possible that he's panicking and splashing, making it worse for himself especially if he gets water in his lungs.

He gets an arm from Zayn around his shoulder, attempting to bring his skinny lean body with him to the edge of the pool where he can throw him over. If Zayn was unconscious, it'd be a dreading nightmare that he'd be lugging his deadweight with the fear of him unable to come conscious.

He led him to the edge of the pool where Zayn grabbed and pulled himself up from the water. Behind him, Niall joins him by his side, rubbing Zayn's back while he coughs the water out from his air pipes.

"It was an honest joke! He was the closest one beside me." Jordan defended himself while Leigh roared at him.

"Are you okay?" Niall asks quietly so Zayn's the only one who could hear him.

"Y-yeah." Zayn coughs raucously, that he feels like puking. "I just need—" He continues to cough. He even says something through it all but it's so inaudible.

But he understands when Zayn's climbing up the steps, sitting at a chair with Haider putting a towel around him.

"Um, let's avoid surprise attacks from now on." Niall says loud enough over the music. He's Jade's designated and no-budget lifeguard so everyone has to agree with him. 

The party gradually came back to life. In case of anything else, Niall sat with Zayn while he got his breath and mind back one sip of water after another.

There was nothing to talk about so he stared at Zayn, elusive as possible. With that, he learned he's got such thick, long hair and eyelashes; it almost makes him jealous if he didn't realize that those things aren't really anything to be envious about.

"I had a bad experience with water when I was younger." Zayn tells him quietly out of nowhere. He's sitting forward with the towel over his mouth. He's still coughing but he seems so inconspicuous that no one would ever think that they're talking.

"So thanks." He finishes before he's sniffing.

"It's alright." _It's my job,_ Niall would say if he was on duty. And if he says then it sounds like he doesn't care if he ends up drowning if he wasn't a lifeguard. Which is wrong, of course. He cares with genuine intentions.

"You don't have to sit here." Zayn's is starting to speak louder and clearer.

"Just making sure you're okay." Niall shrugs. "Don't need you, like collapsing or fainting."

"I'm fine." Zayn assures with a dry grin before he's getting up from his seat.

Niall's left to watch him go to his cousin asking him if he's okay and he gives them the same answer he was given, _yes, I'm fine._

Niall spends the rest of his afternoon being half vigilant with people in the pool and half buzzing when he's stuck in a game of spin the bottle and he's watched the majority lip-lock. Until the turn he spins on, it lands on Amy and he's turning beside her and holding her face.

She's rather a complex girl. And by complex, he just doesn't understand her ways. She's a painter, so she always talks about how dark the world is. It scares Niall sometimes. She has long brown hair that reminds Niall of summer in the valley and green eyes to compliment the earthy feel.

He cuts the kiss short when he recalls that she's got a boyfriend coming home from college and the last thing he needs this summer is a recuperating black eye. Niall doesn't even attempt to ask why she's playing a game where it involves kissing or why the fact she looks like she enjoyed it more than anything she's done this whole entire time.

Harry takes him home at 9. This is why he needs his own ride and not hitching one or borrowing his parents' car. He's waving goodbye to Harry who honks twice just as Zayn comes home as well—walking through his driveway. Good enough, he's alive. Niall's getting ready for dinner which couldn't be different than lamb chops they had yesterday. Maybe it's pork chops, mash, and steamed vegetables with cheese.

If that's not bad, Niall's forced to do garbage tonight after his sister faked a headache to get out of it. He's not supposed to drag it along the pavement, but who's to say _how_ he does garbage? He smells cigarettes when he stops at the curb, turning to his left to see Zayn smoking at his mailbox.

Maybe Zayn is wearing his pyjamas because nobody would ever walk around at school with ripped sleeves with a big huge skull on it unless they want to be labeled as both a Goth or a Punk. He's nearly there—he's got a nose hoop on his left nostril. He does a lot of things to his body. Nobody really knows that he has tattoos but Niall. Everybody thinks they're just rumours but he really does, all over his arms. He hides it very well. Even at the party when he was pushed into the pool, nobody had asked why he had a long sleeve flannel shirt on.

He really is a bizarre character. Still, he can't believe the nose ring on his left nostril. It's quite dark right now, but he can see Zayn quite clearly. Niall sees him around the school usually wearing whatever he wants—from polo shirts to Versace shirts that's sometimes a silk button down with very intricate designs. It ends up being symmetrical with either a set of bright or solid colours. He couldn't go unnoticed school like that. Oddly, it looks good on him.

"You're going to annoy everybody up if you keep dragging that bag." Zayn comments and Niall puts the bag right into the trash can. Sometimes when it's his actual duty to do the garbage, he'd see their property with the blue, black, and green boxes which probably means what kind of garbage to put in. Niall thinks it's just a waste of time. No one would ever do that.

Wait, did Zayn just talk to him? _Again?_

"Did you know cigarettes can kill you?" Niall sounds like he’s caught onto something and Zayn grins when he shrugs his shoulder. "Are we stating the obvious, right now? Why are you out?"

Unexpectedly, yet it’s always the usual, his voice goes soft. "Hm, my dad was arguing with my sister." Zayn shrugs, tapping the extra ash off the end of his cigarette.

"Sorry to hear that." Niall feels like he should apologize.

"It's alright. One day they fight, the next day, they're in Rodero Drive, shopping their credits out."

"Sounds promising." Niall nods. He watches Zayn drag a long breath from his cigarette, cheeks hollowing in until he lets it out from his nose and Niall's nose just automatically crinkles. He can't even handle the gas when he burps after drinking Coca-Cola.

"Goodnight." Zayn presses his cigarette against the pavement, and tosses it into the black garbage box of his. "I'll see you at school." 

Even though he says that, Niall doesn't see Zayn at school that often than he would think.

* * *

It's late May but it still seems too early for Niall to quit studying for exams. How does one study for English and Math—the hardest subjects out there to exist? And he still has a year left to go until he graduates, not much prospects there.

Jade and Harry join him for lunch, which sucks because:

1\. Lunch consists of cold peas and carrots glazed in butter, mash potatoes lacking gravy, 6 pieces of microwave-warm chicken nuggets, a stale cookie, and a fruit cup. Niall has much appreciation for the lunch ladies' duty to serve them lunch. He gets it. But does lunch have to be like a science experiment—to see who'll faint first after a bite of the mashed potatoes?

And…

2\. Lunch sucks because it's distracting when Niall plans to actually study.

"And here we approach a very hostile creature—the albino bookworm." Harry whispers, syncing with Jade when the put their trays down on the table.

"Ah yes, indeed. The albino bookworm. Always studying. A bad habit if you ask me."

"Give it up." Niall rolls his eyes. "I've got shit to do for this student council meeting, _while_ studying for this math exam."

"Why? You've got a 4.1 GPA." Jade stabs her fork in her plate of carrots.

"3.9, not 4.1." Niall corrects her. "English is bringing me down."

"Anyways!" Harry cuts in. "I found a note in our locker." Harry slides him the envelope. 

" _Our_ locker?" Niall scoffs. "You just put your stuff in and expect me to be nice and let you keep it in, which I am. Anyway," Niall starts to open the envelope up.

It's a postcard from Miami. Niall doesn't know anybody in his family who's in Miami right now. But he likes the picture of the pink flamingo posing in front of the ocean strip of his postcard. They've got awesome handwriting that curls at the tails and the letters are round too that it looks like calligraphy. Niall can feel the imprint of the words from behind, as his fingers rub the face of the postcard. Someone must've been rushed or excited.

_I wish it were easy. Knowing you for some time now, having to talk to you should be. Maybe it's you, but maybe it's my fault too that it hasn't happened yet. Hope it's not too late._

"No name?" Jade asks, peering from Niall's side while Harry peers from the other side. "Not even a signature happy face or xo."

"They must be really enigmatic." Harry says like they’re in a covert mission. Niall looks at Harry; it must be his word of the day.

"But it's May..." Jade says what's on Niall's mind, but he continues to sip his coke while he tries to memorize a formula to an equation. _Tries_ , is the key word. "Summer starts in a month."

"Who do you think wrote it?" Harry asks. "Because surely, it's not sent by mail. No address. It's someone here in this school."

"It's probably you playing a trick on me, Harry." Niall shakes his head, tucking the postcard into a random page in his math textbook.

"No! I don't write like that." Harry shakes his head. "Someone really likes you."

"It could be Amy. I mean, she wouldn't shut up about kissing you Saturday." Jade purses her lips in casually. 

"But she has a boyfriend in college." Harry adds in. This is really all they could care about, and it's not helping Niall's case. "Not to sound like an ass but, maybe she's cheating on him for you." 

"She's a nice girl though. She wouldn't." Niall mumbles, mindlessly underlining the quadratic equation.

"Nice girl?" Jade bursts in laughter. "No no no. Amy?"

Amy and Harry laugh on, and Niall's left to wonder for the rest of the day who has left him this postcard. Students here at school don't look like they've ever been to Miami—they're too poor for that obscene nightlife that involves a lot of liquor and lights and music. But then again, someone must've just gone to the small tuck shops here and picked up postcards to write on and send to whomever they please. Totally not uncommon.

What's not common is, this postcard is lacking any signature or address and Niall's stuck not knowing who it would be. He has a month to figure it out, and he'll see how summer drags it along with him.

His mind is wrapped around the flamingo postcard since this afternoon. It's 5 o'clock, he's stuffed from having dinner from Mickey D's with Harry and Jade but there's that sound of a motorcycle revving outside their driveway and Niall's running to his window to see Parker—a total nutcase if Niall could judge him—with his leather jacket and jeans. To match with what's going on; he could hear his sister Daughn yelling at their dad downstairs about coming back. Sometimes, everyone doubts that she'd ever come back after a date with Parker. Niall wouldn't either. 

If Niall's hoping to live on the edge, he would date Parker. He's got a nice set of leather jackets and jeans outfit going on for him. To top that, he's going 10 above the normal speed of the road on a motorcycle—no helmet. And rumour is around the town, he never goes to sleep. If anyone wants a scary boyfriend to scare their parents—it's Parker.

Unlike their dad doubting Daughn, she is smart. Niall wouldn't be as stupid to watch his sister runaway with this rebellious hunk with nice hair coincidentally before a Green Day concert in Palace Theatre in Hollywood. Niall doesn't know where Daughn had gotten her belligerent and pessimist side. It couldn't be their dad—he's all about taking initiative and blah blah blah, influence shit. Might be their mom, but their mom is quite different. She always reads, and talks about GMO food, pollution, and police killings. It's too politically puzzling for Niall to understand but he tries.

Anyway, the good thing about Parker is that he's loyal. They've been going out for a year, and he always makes Daughn wear a helmet no matter what.

"Unbelievable, that girl." His dad grouches in their foyer.

"Maybe you should learn to like Parker." Niall watches his dad go up their long set of stairs from their balcony railing. "You're just giving yourself high blood. The doctor would kill you for that before you die of that."

"I just want her to date somebody that's good, has a future in sight, and has plans for it." His dad sighs. Well, that cuts out Niall in that kind of category of 'good'—what will he do for his future? A lawyer would be great, or even an engineer that deals with sound. Better yet, a biochemist.

"Maybe his future is her. You never know." Niall shrugs.

"You're giving me a headache just talking about it, Niall."

"Sorry." He laughs. It's the high blood.

And through a sudden change of topic. "Can you clean the pool?" His dad asks.

"Can I? I really don't want to." Niall crosses his arms.

"You're gonna have to. It's your mom's wedding anniversary on Friday. I'm gonna do this pretty thing with lanterns on the pool and have dinner by it. Just take the leaves and bugs out."

" _Her_  wedding anniversary? So, you'd want this place empty?" Niall says slowly with a smirk.

"Well, I mean ours, and yes, after dinner but you and Daughn can help me cook." His dad raises his eyebrow at Niall.

"I'll clean the pool, help you with dinner, and be out before she comes home for $20." Niall lays out his open palm, smirking at his dad.

He groans, only to comply with Niall's wager by taking his wallet out. "Take your sister with you."

"Ah!" Niall's lightbulb goes off. "Another $20."

"What?" His dad exclaims. "Why?"

"Tokens for arcade games. We're gonna go to the roller rink with the arcade. And oh, pizza as well."

"You're a pricey kid." His dad slaps the bill in his hand. "I kind of hate you for that."

"What?" Niall shrugs, flipping through the two bills before he's putting it in his own wallet. "I need to start getting funds for my car." He's getting desperate for it—might take Harry's offer up on the piece of Jaguar junk. Then another idea comes. "And I also want the car on Friday."

"What! Daughn is two years older than you and I don't see her making these negotiations." His dad scoffs. "Fine. If you want the car, be back by 11."

"Alright, alright." Niall laughs.

"Now, go do what you're supposed to do."

"Yes sir!" Niall salutes his dad.

He hurries down the stairs, unsure if he should change into clothes that aren’t jeans and a t-shirt for pool cleaning. Though there's no one to really impress so he'll keep his fading warm orange t-shirt and shorts on.

Jade's probably the only one who hands him mix-tapes to listen to so most of the time, all his music consists of is Backstreet Boys, Destiny's Child, NSYNC, and Spice Girls, Britney Spears, and Cristina Aguilera. He loves the tapes. He's set to make his own if someone taught him.

"If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends!" Niall sings with endearment, voice burgeoning so he can hear himself throw his headphones. He holds the pool net—or in actuality, is whipping it around in the water while his knees bounce. "Make it last forever, friendship never ends!"

He lets a few seconds pass by into the song, grabbing a few leaves with his net. It doesn't comply very well. He'd rather use his hands, except without the risk of falling in.

"So! Tell me what I want! What I really really want!" Niall starts to yell.

He's interrupted by a pelted rolled up paper that now floats in the water. Another mess to clean up. He looks left and right to who it might be. It could be his dad. He's always ruining everything for him. No, but he hears someone saying something through his headphones that makes him pause his cassette.

"What?" Niall asks with a grimace.

"I said, what are you doing?" The voice comes from the other side of the fence.

Niall raises his eyebrows when he realizes he's being heard. "Oh. Hi Zayn."

"Hey." He replies back.

"I got paid to clean my pool. Not much happening here." He leans against the fence. If Niall’s looking for a chance to talk to Zayn, it’d be now. Especially when Zayn’s presence is missing most of the time. Just to see what the curiosity and enigma is behind Zayn. Harry's word of the day got to him.

He always thinks about where Zayn goes during lunch. He only has him in history class where Niall always wants to slam his head onto the table. That place is nothing of excitement. The only fun he notices would be when they begin new projects. Niall sits in the back, and Zayn avoids loud company so he sits up front so neither of them talk as much. Two different worlds.

If it wasn’t written between the lines, he was forced by his mother to keep history class. She says it brings the soul out, and how he’ll be able to learn what the world’s going through, what it did and will go through.

"Sounds like you were having a one-man show." Zayn's voice sounds so much closer.

"I'm mastering the way of singing in a group with myself. Getting the harmonies done while I sing the melody. That's a skill." Niall lifts a brow to himself, waiting for Zayn's response.

"Well, you're making my dog howl."

And there he was thinking that Jade added the dog howls accidentally into the mix-tape. "You have a dog?"

"Name's Tarantino." Zayn answers with complimentary sounds of its collar shaking. "A black lab puppy. Just got him from my gran."

"Show me."

"I don't exactly know how." Zayn spaces his words out. He must be confused. "Unless I throw him over the fence but I think he wouldn't like that."

"Maybe I'll see him another time." Niall leans off the fence.

Before he puts his headphones back on, Zayn bids him, "See you, Niall Horan."

* * *

Niall wasn't sure whether wearing the Green Day shirt that Daughn had gotten him would be pleasing the school community—it might just hurt his social cred. Nevertheless, it's just a shirt and _Kerplunk!_ probably doesn't mean anything bad. He can't speak for the weird scene happening on his shirt. 

"You listen to Green Day, Niall?" Harry asks with a knit between his eyebrows.

"No?" He looks down at his shirt that he's wearing with high-waist jeans. "Just wearing what my sister got me on Wednesday."

"Parker took her?" Jade asks.

"Yup."

"It's—it's a shirt, you see..." Harry stammers, half-heartily gesturing at Niall.

"You don't like it?" That might be the first negative things for Harry to say.

"It's a bit unusual." Says Harry. Or that Harry hates grunge and punk music with a passion. "MTV is always playing that dark music, the same old stuff on and on. Not enough pop."

"I know. But my sister got it for me." It’s not like Niall’s going to toss the shirt away for his sister to find in the trash and hate him forever. They’ve got a good relationship going on for siblings. Niall has seen Jade with her sister—it’s always yelling and arguing.

“Someone else likes your shirt.” Jade grins widely at him, only to follow with Harry handing him another post card.

“Viva Las Vegas!” Harry cheers.

Quickly, he gets shut down by the librarian shushing him from his counter.

_I’m sorry to be talking to you like this. Hope you don’t mind whatever this is, I prefer the distance and the casualty of it just being between us. One day, I’ll probably grow the courage to show my face to match the voice to these secretive notes I'm sneaking into your locker. For now, I’ll give you the benefit of doubt._

_\- Hello from Vegas, I guess?_

Then he turns the postcard to a picture of Fremont St. and the famous Golden Nugget Gambling Hall with many of the city’s lights ablaze, promoting more gambling and bingo.

“So this cancels you out, Harry.” Niall looks through the postcard more. Brought from Vegas, there’s not much he can figure out here. The writing is the same, the colour of the pen was no different than before—but there’s a finishing signature, so that’s different.

“Amy went to Vegas for Spring Break.” Jade informs.

“She collects postcards?” Niall is dubious of that.

“No, maybe sexual diseases…”

Niall stifles over his laugh before the librarian is warning them for the second time to the shut up. Better that he leaves before he gets kicked out. Then he begins to wonder if leaving renews his warning back to zero. It’s probably not going to happen—the librarian is too strict that Niall’s too scared to borrow a book from him.

After school, he’s running a small scrimmage game between the 14 members of their soccer team, Portello FC. This season’s finished so all Niall wants is to just play with the members. There are perks to being captain of the soccer team—like making all the decisions where the team can’t fight him against it. He’ll hear the complaints, and it’ll always flow out one end of his ear and out the other. That’s always rare though, he’s a good captain. He led them to the finals before his knee gave up last year and cost them the finals against a team from Florida.

He’s their leading attacker. A part of him hates being forward. Then there’s the other part of him that knows he has to do it for his team. Doing scrimmages teaches him something about his teammates—they often mob up on the ball, and guess who’s got it? Niall sees a gateway between the two trying to get the ball from him; with the opening of Will’s legs he kicks the ball through before moving to his quick left and there he goes behind Will with the ball towards the net. About half an hour in with a goal on his team, his middle-fielder is calling it quits and he’s not that mad as he should be if they’re practicing for the season.

He’s the last one to leave the locker room, making sure the lights and the showers are turned off. Their coach has given him the responsibility to keep tabs on who comes to practice still even after the season has finished. If he can remember what his coach said, it’s something about seeing who’s really in it to win it. Just because the season is over doesn’t mean the team is.

He meets Harry back on the field where he’s at the stands—lying down on the cold metal where he’s falling asleep with music in his ears. Niall could hear the _Baby Got Back_ by _Sir Mix-A-Lot_ blasting through his headphones and he chuckles to himself before pouring water on his face with his water bottle.

“Hey!” Harry kicks his feet up right away. “I’ve got a Walkman here.”

“Come on, we gotta head home.” Niall holds both sides of his cheek with one hand, forcing Harry’s lips out. “My mom says you can stay for dinner.”

Niall has no clue what dinner is. He never really does until he sits down. Sometimes, just to not keep him guessing, his mom should tell him what’s for dinner. Or she must be just like him, procrastinating until she finds what’s good to cook from her cookbooks.

It’s a ten-minute ride from school their street. Harry’s parking by the curb while Niall notices his sister out in their front yard, watering the plants. He looks to the right and hears the door shut close, noticing Zayn wearing a loose long sleeve, dark navy t-shirt and a lighter shade of navy jeans with Tarantino, his black lab—puppy?

“Hey Zayn.” Harry waves from his side of the car when he gets out.

He looks up with a smile, thinking before he could finally say, “Hi Harry.” He rolls up the leash around his fist.

“Mind if I ask, how old that dog is?” Niall points at the lab walking in front of Zayn with a wince of his right eye.

“7 years.” They all meet at the sidewalk between their houses.

“That’s not a puppy.”

“Also the reason why I couldn’t throw him over the fence and show you him.” Then Zayn crouches down to shake Tarantino’s face. “Still a puppy to me.”

“Hey, my grandma calls her 6-year-old Shiba Inu a puppy.” Harry turns to Niall, Zayn likes the validation from Harry to allow him to call his 5-year old dog puppy.

“That’s because it’s small, like a basket.” He narrates with his hands. Niall looks back at Zayn who’s still petting his puppy. "Not this giant thing."

Harry must've ignored the last comment with Zayn because he's asking, “Going to the park?”

“Yeah. Hoping it shits because that’s why I’m out in the first place.” Zayn stares right into Tino’s eyes before looking back at Niall and Harry. “Mom says, if I want to keep the dog, I gotta take care of it.”

“How adult of you.” Niall crosses his arms.

“Yeah,” Zayn says under his breathe. He stands right back up and tugs on Tino’s leash. “I’ll see you guys later.”

* * *

After dinner, all three—Niall, Daughn, and Harry head to Niall’s room where Harry spent minutes being an enthusiast on their mother’s cooking. Apparently, Harry doesn’t get fed a lot of well-cooked food for him to fan about it like he’s on a cooking show. Niall and Daughn just spend the 5 minutes playing Crazy Eights. Harry finishes first and fishes Niall’s Math textbook out his bag when his legs hang from the edge of the bed.

“Hey Daughn, did you know your brother gets cute little love notes in his locker?” Harry opens to the two postcards near the end and hands them to Daughn before Niall could reach for them.

“Aww, Niall!” She gushes. “Do you you have any clue who it is? I can help you out.”

“You don’t even go to my school.”

“I don’t need to.” Daughn huffs. She lays the two postcards out. Apparently the two are enough for her to figure out who it is. Does Niall have to mention that there are nearly 2,000 kids at their school?

“I wish it were easy. Knowing you for some time now, having to talk to you should be easy.” Daughn reads the first postcard. “So like, from this sentence, this has to be someone you’ve known at least for a year. But it’s someone you don’t talk to, like Cristina Buitrago—your summer fling, right?”

Harry agrees by nodding his head with Daughn as Niall puzzles it out.

“Maybe…” Now that Niall thinks about it thoroughly. They do have quite a history.

“Maybe it's you, but maybe it's my fault too that it hasn't happened yet. Hope it's not too late.” Daughn continues. “They’re saying you’re messed up, but like so are they. Kind of romantic.”

“What? I don’t get it.”

“You’re so hopeless, Niall.” Daughn scoffs. “I’ve been listening to Parker’s grunge and rock mix-tapes so I know these deep things. And they’re saying you’re hard to approach, and that they’re messed up to think that you are and how stupid they are for not being able to talk to you while they hope it won’t be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“Ugh, Niall.” Daughn smiles wittily. “When they say too late, they mean in case you leave for the summer, or find someone else to enjoy this summer with.”

“They are so cryptic. Must be an English nerd.” Harry whispers.

“Clearly, they know the deep stuff because they must like the same music Parker listens to. And there are not a lot of them alternative freaks wandering around Beverly Hills going to Portello High so it’ll be easy to figure out who’s writing you these postcards. Just find those losers ripped jeans and leather jacket peculiar freaks.”

“They usually hide in the bathroom, smoking cigarettes.” Harry chimes in while Daughn nods after him this time. “Like Cristina. Oooooh.” 

“You’re dating those kinds of losers, Daughn.” Niall mutters.

“Oh shush!” Her arm smacks Niall right in the shoulder.

Cristina doesn't smoke, but Harry's willing to make them a thing again for the summer. He just wants a reason to pop in the Gucci store on Rodero Drive. 

Then she mumbles about the postcard before she starts to read out loud, “I’m sorry to be talking to you like this. Hope you don’t mind whatever this is, I prefer the distance and the casualty of it just being between us. One day, I’ll probably grow the courage to show my face to match the voice to these secretive notes I'm sneaking into your locker. For now, I’ll give you the benefit of doubt.” She looks up at Niall before she starts to giggle and jump on his back.

“Get off! What the heck is wrong with you!” He shakes her off.

“How do you feel about having a secret admirer?” She hisses near his ear.

“I don’t know! Chill out!”

And that's the goddamn honest truth. Love letters have never been sent to him anonymously. There are always ones where he can respond. This is the first that's left him thinking about it all the time that he's saving them in his drawer, hoping to see where they had gone to. New York should probably be the next one. He sees the party city pattern. He'll have to figure out who's been to the places he's been getting postcards from. That's not too hard in Portello High.

"Hey, look—it's Zayn." Niall thinks out loud. "Reading in the dark?"

"That's not weird at all." Daughn snorts with Harry, and Niall pouts his lips out as he watches his friend and sister laugh. "I heard from Lindsay's sister who told Bianca who told Thalia who told  _me_ , that Zayn's slept with 50 girls, not including the girls from our school. And there was something about him hooking up with a guy but I doubt he goes the other way."

"I heard he got shot once." Harry added. "A bullet went straight through his hip." 

"I also heard he's like those weird political feminists even though he's a guy." Daughn laughed. "You know those types, right? The indie, emo, anti-social, fight-for-your-right kind of guy, always brooding, always smoking."

"Are you sure it's political feminist or emo creep?" Harry asks Daughn. "Aren't feminist political anyway?"

Whatever Daughn and Harry were saying, he didn't care. Though, hearing Daughn talking about her doubts on Zayn's interests in guys was off-putting. From his window, he could see Zayn out in his backyard with Tino beside him, lying down with two of his paws under his head. Zayn seems to be reading with only the moon as his source of light and the light above his door. Niall wonders what he's really up to. He doesn't have a lot of friends at school; he doesn't go out as often either. Maybe he works too much for his well-being that he doesn't get a break. And since tomorrow is Friday, Niall might just be able to get him to come.

He's free from Daughn on his back and excuses himself from his sister and his best friend's company to rush down to his backyard. He grabs a branch off his tree, and tosses it over the fence, expecting a bark from Zayn's dog and not the stick back in his yard.

"Hello?" Niall asks into the air. "Zayn?" He makes sure.

"Yeah, it's me." Zayn's voice seems like it’s getting closer. "What's up?"

"Are you busy tomorrow? Me and my sister are hitting up the roller rink with the arcade and grabbing pizza after." Niall leans his back against the fence. "Wanna go? We can meet there at 7."

"Uh—yeah. I guess." Zayn hesitantly agrees. "Just—why me?"

"I just think you work too much, and need time out with friends." _Or, I really just want to know what it takes for you to have fun._

"Yeah," His voice is steadier and confident. "Alright. I guess I'll go."

Niall smiles at the good news. Now, he can figure out what Zayn does in his downtime and stop wondering about what he does like many of the kids at Portello. And there's another thing bothering him.

"Zayn, why didn't your dog fetch the stick for you?" Niall looks above the fence, just to realize he can't see Zayn from where he is.

"Um, I forgot to mention. He's blind." Zayn laughs breathily.

"How does he get around your house?" Niall's eyes wander up to the window of his room where he sees Harry and Daughn watching.

"It's complicated." Zayn explains softly. "I leash him inside so I can walk him through. Just until he figures out where the food is and the exit."

"You really care for him." Niall grins to himself.

"Yeah. He's my grandma's dog. She didn't want him anymore because he's getting old. But I've known him for all my life and I don't wanna see him put down, even if I know it's better than seeing him dead. I'll know he'd live a good life."

"You should take him to the beach." Niall ponders.

"I'm scared he'll end up swimming farther than he should. And I can't get him, I can't swim either."

"I mean, tell me when you wanna go." Niall shrugs to himself. "I'll be your personal lifeguard." He's way too kind for his well being.

"Alright. Thanks, Niall. I'll see you later. Gotta head back in."

Niall didn't want it to end that quick, but Daughn and Harry would be expecting a reason as to why he dashed outside just to talk to Zayn. Frankly, Niall's not sure either. He doesn't feel bad for Zayn. His mom says he should never feel bad about anyone who's got no friends or who lacks a social life. Sometimes, it's better for some people to go their own way. There's not much to Zayn but his stories. He's got plenty if people ask around.

"I invited him with us tomorrow." Niall says when he gets back on his bed.

"He's so closed off." Daughn winces. "Besides, I think we have a lead as to who's writing you postcards."

"Who?"

"It's Cristina." Harry answers. "I think she wants your summer romance back."

"I-I don't know. I thought she hates me."

Cristina is one of the hottest girls he's ever gone out with her olive skin, cute cheeks, brown eyes, and dark curly hair. She's her own character. She’s even got a modelling career going on with Versace but that’s not important. Sometimes the girls believe she’s everything anyone wants to be. There’s the truth in there but she’s always made it clear it’s not the life. And then there's Niall who threw it all away when summer ended. That's why she'd hate him. It also explains why she's writing him these postcards.

"Like, figure out how to tell her you're reading her loud and clear." Daughn slaps down the bed.

"Maybe you can give her a rose. Lots of girls like that." Harry grins and Niall laughs at his side comment, me too.

"Yeah, okay. We'll see what happens. But what if it's not her?"

"What've you got to lose?" Harry shrugs. "You get her back."

"See, this wasn't hard. You boys are just stupid." Daughn scoffs with a smirk.

"Besides, Niall, many of the kids at school like you. I can spill about 200 girl's names right now. I can definitely say you're doing better than Paul."

"You're lying. Even I stare Paul down when he walks through the halls."

"Yeah, he has the whole school on his tail. Sorry." Harry hides his face. "Look on the bright side; at least you don't have Chlamydia from 4 other girls."

Niall can't really call himself gay if he likes girls, and he can't really call himself straight if he likes boys. Is there a name for someone like that? Maybe they're called the in-betweeners. He told Daughn about it, and she says he should stick to the girls’ side more than the guys. At least she's not running to the church, confessing to the pastor about his in-betweener brother. When she said that, it felt wrong because he likes boys more. He told Harry and Jade too, who didn't seem to have a problem at all and it made things easier between them. He doesn't dwell on it; his friends don't dwell on it either. It's not much of an elephant in the room.

Niall's not sure if he should be waiting on somebody who's asking him through a postcard—especially when things between Cristina should've been over. If it is her.

* * *

Harry’s advice about getting Cristina a rose felt a bit far-fetched when he’s feeling a bit certain that it’s not from her. Just in case everything goes right, his mom’s rose bush is outside for picking. All he’s done is slip a note in her locker telling her to meet him at the soccer field behind the bleachers. He’s expecting her to be late due to the reason that he added his name at the end. If he can remember, he didn’t end it well. It could have if he didn’t tell her, _‘Hey Cristina, I think it’s better if we don’t bring this fling between us in fall. This was more of a summer thing anyway.’_ Yeah, a real gentleman. Surprisingly, they never had sex—it shocks everybody and it still shocks his friends that he's 16 and he still hasn't had sex. To be fair, with the many girls he's kissed, he's done a lot in his own opinion.

It took her half an hour to come around. It was almost close to impossible. Niall’s heart jumped a little seeing a grin on her face.

“Hey Niall.” She says quietly, a foot away from him. “I got your note.”

“Y-yeah, I know it’s out of nowhere.” Niall’s throat is drying up.

“I mean, after a year, you finally acknowledged me.” She scoffs, putting her foot down. “What’s wrong with you, Niall?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m trying to make it right.” Niall’s lips tighten.

“I could have anybody I want.”

“Yes, I know that.” Niall huffs. "But I've been getting your notes and I'm thinking why don't we... Try again?"

Talking to Cristina shouldn't be that hard. Maybe it's her fierce glare that makes Niall weary, and the way she crosses her arms at him while she looks like she's about to go play tennis is kind of cute without the intimidation.

"Would a rose make it better?" Niall raises his shoulder awkwardly. "I-It's at home though. Still with the bush."

"I hate you so much." She sighs. "I could date a model for all I care, and yet I like you."

"Isn't that good?" Niall laughs, and closes the space between them with a hug. He hasn't felt her embrace for nearly a year, and all he can hope is that her thick, flowy hair doesn't go into his mouth. "I missed you."

"I missed you too." She squeezes him in her arms. She takes her arms back, and grabs onto Niall's hand before they could leave the back of the stands.

Niall had time to take her out for a milkshake and catch up on a lot of things with her. Too much catch up that they're running the same pace for nearly an hour about her going off to New York when it was Spring Break so she could sign her modelling contract. It was exciting to hear while being able to hold her hand again. But he likes stories—funny things like her trying to look fierce but she can't so she ends up laughing. He didn't hear that much from her; she stuck with her clothing tales from New York and Miami.

He's curious whether Cristina really likes him or not. She hasn't given him a genuine smile that makes him feel wanted. That's not until he lends her his starter jacket to wear when they leave, and she ends up leaning into him. It's cute on her, especially when it's big on her and it makes her skirt look so short. He can smell her perfume, very potent and sweet like honey and it makes him want to kiss her and hold her very tight, and so he does before reaching her front gate and she holds his face while he's got his arms around her waist.

"Always been a good kisser." She laughs, letting out a deep breath before closing her lips between Niall again. Man, the taste of her lips is driving him insane. It's like bubble gum.

She pulls back with a smile, taking Niall's jacket off and holding it out for him to take.

Instead, Niall shakes his head and hands it back to her. "Keep it."

"But Adidas was _so_ last year.” Her voice went into a different pitch, making Niall stare at her with a plain expression. “It's Nike that's trending now."

"So I'm guessing you don't want it." Niall says slowly.

"Fine, I'll keep it. You're insisting." She huffs, and gives a quick kiss on his lips before she goes in.

He wasn't insisting. At all.

* * *

"She said that Adidas sucks, so she wasn't going to take my jacket even though she looked very cold." Niall glares at his sister.

"Should've worn Nike." Daughn shrugs.

"I can't believe she's the one writing me notes." Niall huffs. He lets a long groan out before he leans forward with his hands in his face. He gets brushed by a kid running to one of the arcade games.

"Look on the bright side." Daughn smiles, combing his hair with her fingers.

"What?" He turns to look at her, ignoring the Pac Man dying noises.

"I don't know." She shrugs again without any clue, still a happy face on her. "Where's your friend, Zayn Malik?"

Niall has no clue. It's 7:30, and he and his sister got kicked out of the house for the rest of the night until 11. They've got nearly 3 hours to burn and $40 to spend tonight, $10 going towards Niall's car fund. That means they'll be hoovering this place empty of tickets and taking home the 20,000 ticket prize which is a motorized toy boat.

God, he's so stupid. He's Zayn Malik? His family owns that auto-shop Harry was talking about? He's a whole jump closer to getting a car. He's praying under his breath that the car isn't going to be Harry's Campbell's Soup can. It probably might—he's desperate. 

Finally, five minutes after, Zayn joins them at their table with a tight smile and a short greeting. Niall looks at his chest—not being a pervert.

"You're wearing Adidas." Niall turns to Daughn with a slight grin.

"Yeah." Zayn looks down. "What's wrong with Adidas?"

"Inside joke." Daughn shakes her head at Niall before leaving their table. Apparently, Parker's coming to join them after Daughn realized they'll be out until an hour before midnight—1 hour longer than what their dad would usually allow her.

"So," Niall turns to Zayn. "Since Daughn's going to be spending some time with her boyfriend at the rink, what say you and I gather enough tickets at the arcade for that motorized toy boat?"

"Sounds like you'll be here forever. I’m not that good. I can’t help you out.”

"I've got $10 worth of tokens." Niall laughs holding a bag of tokens.

"Sheesh, Niall. That's a lot. The most you can spend is 3 on Zombroids and you have a hundred in there."

"What's Zombroids?"

"What?" Zayn sounds in shock. "Well, they're only the most lethal hybrid ever to be created between zombies and androids. It's like a whole paradox whether they're dead or alive."

That's the first time he's ever seen Zayn enthusiastic—or heard the entire life just suddenly burst in him. It makes him curious as well.

"What's the mission?" Niall asks.

"2 players, each grab a laser gun and hope for the best."

"I'm in. Let's go."

He's always walked by this game, and played Resident Evil instead. The guns for Zombroids look way cooler, and the setting of the game is at a space program where they're launched up to the moon, where they must put space suits on and figure out how to get back down to earth. The only problem is, the Zombroids have breached the space facility and are now hopping through barriers. They must find the gravity switch by finishing different waves of zombies or they'll die by numerous floating Zombroids.

Niall sucks at this game, barely earning any points while he watches Zayn rack up 200 points each second and that's because of the headshots he's making effortlessly. Way to reserve bullets, Niall's on his last magazine and he won't get ammo reload until the next wave.

Zayn's the reason why they've made it to wave 4. And they haven't even had to put tokens in again. It's certainly not Niall's bravery that's winning them this intense and adrenaline rushing game.

"You're amazing, dude!" Niall laughs.

"I'm here quite too often." Zayn sighs through the weird noises the lasers make.

"Know any more good games?" Niall closes his right eye for a headshot.

"What kind are you into?" Zayn asks.

"Racing. But I want long courses. And a challenge as well." Zayn looks at him quickly before turning back to the screen. "Harry sucks at games. I mean, I love being first on Speed Racers but I wanna race. I'm only number 1 because he ends up crashing into the walls."

"Poor you." Zayn coos.

"Hey, not to sound rude, but this is the first time I've seen you have fun." Niall smiles at Zayn, lacking the thought in his mind that he must shoot.

"I don't go out with people quite often." Says Zayn, pointing both his arms forward with the gun in his hands. "It's better that way."

"Why's that?"

This time, Zayn raises a brow and keeps his sight on Niall. Not moving, very intimidating. Though there's a smile he's trying to hide. "Keep your eyes on the target, Horan."

"Too late." The Zombroids have eaten his brain.

"It's alright." Zayn shrugs. "I'm gonna step out for some air."

"Sorry, if I had..." Niall puts the gun back in its slot.

"It's alright. I just need some time to myself." Zayn smiles and Niall can visually see it. "Don't take it the wrong way. I'm having fun."

As he nods, Zayn leave from the entrance pulling out his cigarette pack. Niall’s left to wait alone for who knows how long. Daughn never left him a time to expect her back so they could all go to Pizza Hut. Including Parker... But Parker totally needs to pitch in. He's 20 and he works at a record store. And it's commission.

There were chances that Niall was going to bring Cristina here like a group date with everyone. Except, those chances were him hoping she'd play a few games with him. They were very limited. He still can't fathom that she's the one writing him these postcards. She's like two separate people—being in real life, then her in writing. She does have this weird thing where she talks to herself when she gets into the zone of things. Probably that's where she got it from.

If that's awkward for Niall, then the next part is really serious awful.

Daughn has this thing where if people don't talk, she won't talk. And she'll only talk to her boyfriend because they've got a lot in common so she could conjure up a topic they can share together anytime. With Zayn here, the one person who's got no clue as to who everybody really is, he's sitting with his hands between his thighs while looking elsewhere while Daughn is forcing Niall to do something about the awkward silence with her eyes.

Zayn's been their neighbour for at least a year now so it's all hi's and byes between them if anyone felt like it. For the past few weeks it's been happening a lot. Usually, Zayn was never the one to say hi at all. He'd give a smile instead and be on his way. So everyone's used to the silent conversation—until it's being brought to their table and everyone's asking themselves why it's quiet.

"So..." Parker starts off and Daughn quickly looks at him. "Zayn, is it?"

"Yeah." Zayn replies blandly. Niall doesn't know whether that's an answer or a yes, I'm here, what do you want? kind of acknowledgment.

"Alright." Parker nods to himself quite a few times before, "so, how'd you get your hair to be long and thick and healthy?" Then he stammers, "I-I'm asking for Daughn."

"Excuse me." She scoffs.

"I don't know. I'm thinking of getting it cut." Zayn puts a hand through his hair.

"No, don't do that." Parker gasps. "It looks really amazing."

"Thanks." Zayn laughs quietly.

Then it's quiet again and Niall's left the only one left to say something. It'd be inappropriate to bring up considering his sister is right there.

"Don't you have the highest grade in English, Zayn?" Niall asks. A 95 to be exact, or so the student who sits beside Zayn says. Their name is Will—the same guy on their soccer team told him so.

"Yeah. Why?"

"I'm kind of failing..." Niall's voice falters as he avoids eye contact with Daughn.

"What?" Daughn exclaims. Niall quickly hushes her.

"You want me to tutor you?" Zayn asks.

"Kind of." Niall shrugs. "Nothing serious. It's a 65. I just wanna be prepared for the exam."

"I'll see." Zayn's lips twist to the side. "I don't know if I'm the right person. I've got lots of things happening this month, and stuff."

"I can ask someone else."

"No. It's fine. I don't have a day in mind but I can call you when I'm free and see where it goes."

"Yeah, that's cool with me." Niall smiles.

When the waiter comes with their two square feet pizza with Parker grinning so wide, that’s when Daughn begins to talk.

"You're failing English?" Daughn repeats.

"Lickbag." Niall huffs. He already feels bad about it.

* * *

The tutoring doesn't happen for another three days. Meanwhile, Niall's spending most of his time with Cristina at Rodeo Drive, picking clothes up from Versace for her photoshoot in the following Saturday. Niall forgot how high-maintenance she was. Or maybe he's too low maintenance to realize what's going around him is perfectly normal.

She's bleaching her hair so she can dye her hair into a lighter brown instead of it being one shade of mahogany brown. Apparently, that's what's in. Niall also apparently doesn't know what's in or what's out.

It's been a couple of hours so he waits for her in the record store where he's welcomed by many rows of vinyl records and cassette tapes. In a coincidence, Jade and Harry are here with Zayn.

Ever since Friday, Zayn eased into their group, feeling comfortable with more than Niall as his company around school. Also, since Cristina's back in the picture, he has to shuffle his time between his friends and his girlfriend. It's difficult when his girlfriend prefers the company of cameras and big names than board games and irrelevant friends.

"Where's our pretty woman?" Jade asks, chewing her bubble gum obnoxiously.

"Pretty Woman was a prostitute." Harry looks at Jade with confusion.

"There's nothing wrong with being a prostitute by choice." Zayn says. That totally caught Niall off-guard. He's making a face at Zayn.

"Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, that's right!" Harry agrees aggressively until he accepted the truth that he can't agree with Zayn at all. "Yeah, why?"

"Some people do things for a living. It's their life, not ours. Should respect them." Zayn casually sighs as he looks through the vinyl records. "The prostitution business and corporate America are both sleazy. Except, one is looked over and one is shamed because the majority are women. You know what that's called? Sexism."

"So how'd you end up living in Beverly Hills?" Jade asks confused. Everyone knows a lawyer makes more than a bagger in a grocery store in a minute.

Somehow, Cristina had ended earlier than Niall thought she was supposed to and had found him in the record store. Her hair reminds him of honey in the forest now—being all shiny and layered.

"My dad is the ambassador for the Pakistani Embassy, my mom owns an auto-shop." Zayn picks out The Cranberries' vinyl record, and flips to the back. "And I was raised by them to read the newspaper and read what's in between the lines."

"Oh, the infamous Zayn Malik! That sounds very boring." Cristina joins in while pursing her lips and raising her eyebrow. Niall looks up at Zayn, wanting to apologize with his eyes but Zayn doesn't look at him longer than a second before he's looking at Cristina. "You should read Vogue."

"What am I going to learn by reading Vogue?" Zayn asks with a grimace.

"Latest trends, what lipstick shade to wear if you're going out on dates, how to lose 20 pounds in one week. Very informational."

"And exactly, how do you lose 20 pounds in one week?"

"Pills. They make you think you're full so you don't eat as much. Totally safe." Cristina smiles and nods.

"Is that healthy?" Niall asks quietly but Jade just shrugs at him.

"I don't know." Cristina shrugs. "But skinny is good."

"No, it isn't. Anything is good. Being fat shouldn't be deemed as a negative." Zayn argues.

Then there's Niall looking up to the ceiling fan while Harry and Jade indulge in their controversial conversation.

"For a handsome man, you're quite stupid." Cristina pouts, and then nudges Niall. "We'll see you later."

* * *

If that wasn't the worst thing Niall's ever encountered. It seems like it's just building up on him.

He's been watching the telephone for ten minutes, just waiting in case it rings or until he finally has the courage to dial up Zayn's number. Get on with it, Niall tells himself and picks up the phone. He brings it up to his ear, listening to the sound of him dialling each number one by one before he could hear it go through.

"Hello, Zayn speaking." His voice sounds awfully cheery.

"It's Niall." He bites his bottom lip when silence ensues.

"How did you get my number?" Zayn asks.

"Uh, it was in the phonebook." Niall looks up at the ceiling. "I-I'm not stalking you."

"I figured. But nobody calls me at 10 in the night for no reason." Says Zayn. 

"Shut up." Niall laughs.

"What's up?" He asks.

"I just want to tell you that you remind me of my mom, and that I'm sorry about Cristina." Niall stares off to the side for a while.

"I know your mom is beautiful and all but seriously?"

"I'm learning a lot from you today, and the first thing is, you're very smart and very politically involved, and yet vain."

Bursting out in laughter, Niall tries to keep his own laughter quiet so he can hear Zayn. That's the first he's ever truly laughed.

"Tell me why I remind you of your mom?"

"She's a writer for LA Times. She talks about our capitalist society, the inequality between women and men at work, police violence, stuff like that."

"That's cool. She's like Tupac but with a pen."

Niall laughs. "Yeah. Sometimes it puts me to sleep, and I always ask what the hell it all means. But then, there's some truth to it. There're times where she feels stressed because her editor doesn't want her to tell people the truth behind the truth."

"It's a tough world. Glad to know your mom's trying to make it a better place, at least."

"My dad thinks she's a dramatic about life."

"Ironically, so does your girlfriend." Zayn laughs.

Girlfriend… That’s a funny term. "Have you ever had a girlfriend before?"

"I had someone. Yeah."

"And, were you happy?"

"I was alright." He could hear the shrug in Zayn's voice.

"Were they mean to your friends?"

"Not exactly."

"So if I'm not happy, and she's being mean to my friends, am I allowed to break up with her even though we've been dating for two weeks?"

"We're friends?" There's a surprise to his voice Niall frowns at.

"Yeah. You did help me win my boat." Niall looks at the toy. He can't wait to let it out on the water. As a 16 year old, he has never actually done something this exciting before.

"Okay, Niall, I'll tell you from my experience." There's a short pause. "There's nothing worse than going steady with somebody who makes you feel like shit. If there's anything my mom's taught me, it's 'put yourself above everyone else.'"

"Don't tell anyone, okay?" Niall queries. "Everyone just wants us together. Maybe that's why I'm with her. Realistically, I don't know what I'm doing either."

"You'll figure it out. This is your life. Don't let anybody hold you back from experiencing it.” Zayn assures him. “I'm gonna head to bed. Nice talking to you."

"Goodnight."

* * *

On Saturday, Niall had finally buckled down into buying the piece of scrap Harry suggested to him instead of buying a whole entire working car. Now he's got about a few more weeks to put this car altogether and it looks like it was pressed to be destroyed.

Haider had told Harry that Zayn works at one of the auto-shop industry his family owns just twenty minutes away from their Beverley Hills towards East L.A. 

Niall kept it a secret for some reason. He wanted to surprise Zayn with a total piece of shit car. If he'll take it, the look on Zayn's face with his co-workers will be priceless. And he's really looking forward to seeing a giant crushed soup can transform into a car that he can actually drive. The only problem is, this might just cost him a lot of hours on the lifeguard shack, a second job, and six month's allowance to pay it off.

"Hey Zayn." Niall walked into the garage where there are about four cars being worked on, seven queued up to be checked on, and Zayn's changing a battery out of a Jeep.

"Niall?" Zayn did not expect company at all. Everybody but Niall somehow knew his family owned this business. Their cars came in here for several reasons but they would have never come here to talk or hang out. 

"I have a gift."

"It's not even my birthday. Do you even know when my birthday is?" 

Niall's not sure if Zayn is joking because his face didn't show any kind of light-heartedness. He's right about not knowing when Zayn's birthday is. It would suck if it's in two weeks and he's popping in with his so-called gift.

Harry's uncle pulled up his truck with the trashed car right on its platform to where the garage doors are. There are no wheels, no lights, dents and scratches all over, and disgusting ripped interior. It lacks everything a useable car has. And Zayn was absolutely unimpressed with this gift.

"You got me this giant piece of junk to recycle?" Zayn's eyebrows arch high above his eyes like he's expecting for it to turn into a robot—not in this shitty condition. Maybe he knew that before everybody else. Harry starts to laugh, patting the car. It's very hollow.

"Hm, more like reuse." Harry snorts a breath out from his nostrils. "It has an engine." 

"Can I get the backstory first?"

"Niall wants a car. Wants to drive his dates." Harry licks his molars as he stares at his best friend pacing in the garage.

"I have my license but no car." Niall shrugs, letting his face sad as possible to add effect to Harry's story.

"I-I just work here? Like I change oil and whatnot." Zayn wipes the sweat off his brow. "I don't know if I can help you."

"I believe in you, Zayn!" Niall starts to plead. "I will give my blood, sweat, and tears for this."

"So cry then." Zayn gestures his arm at Niall, quirking an eyebrow up.

"I'm starting to like you, Zayn." Harry nods at him. They both laugh and Niall has no choice but to fake cry and blubber. Not because Zayn told him to.

Both his friends are going to bully him at some point in his life, and he will cry knowing he's got nothing to back him up. He hides his face in his hand, sobbing and wailing until his voice echoes and he rips his hands off his face, giving a flat and deadpan face at the both of them.

"Thanks. I'm glad to know your tears are in this after all." Zayn beckons to the truck to back up inside. 

"Apparently so is his blood." Harry looks at Zayn. Suddenly, he grabs Niall's hand, exposing his palm. "Got a knife?"

* * *

For some reason, Zayn decided to make this his project at work. Ever since Niall dropped the piece of scrap in his garage yesterday, he's given the employees every appointment they have just so he can avoid any other kind of work. 

He had worked two days on this and Niall has seen it all happen; Zayn's blood, sweat, and tears are being put into this car like he's doing this for a grade in auto technology class. And Niall who watches from the side, can't see why Zayn ever had faith in this car in the first place. For four hours, he spent it all cleaning and digging through the details of this car. Niall never spoke about it a lot. He doesn't see it more than just something he can drive instead of waiting for Harry in the morning to come and go to school together.

But Niall's watched the sweat roll down Zayn's face just to replace the engine for a new one, adding the extras before fixing the body of the car. Niall can almost see it—thanks to Zayn. Double dual exhausts, a new transmission, chrome wheels, and a midnight abyss metallic finish. In no time, he'll be out until the sun rises.

Niall must've avoided time because it's nine at night. He can hear the crickets outside and Zayn's breathing. All either of them can smell is gasoline and rubber.

"Dinner is on me." Niall laughs quietly, rubbing his face. "As a thank you."

Zayn nods. It's like something snapped in his mind to pull himself away from the vehicle. "Okay." 

Dinner is cheap late at night and that's all Niall can afford for now. Burgers and fries, that's what they eat. He ordered an extra burger knowing he didn't eat the whole time just watching Zayn and his friend work at the garage the entire time he was there; maybe even longer. 

Zayn's a quiet eater as far as Niall knows. One by one, that's how he eats his fries. Finishing a bite is how he eats a burger. Drinking until his mouth feels clean from food bits is how he drinks his Sprite. Niall does it all in one take but seeing Zayn, he really shouldn't or he might just end up choking on his own food.

"So, about your girlfriend," Zayn puts his drink down. "Why are you going out with her if you don't like her?"

Niall shrugs before he can even tell Zayn. "I felt bad. She wrote me these notes on a postcard. They were nice."

Zayn looks up at Niall. His eyes narrow with his eyebrows, and he looks back down before Niall could notice.

"They're just words on paper. Shouldn't mean much compared to what their actions prove." Zayn reads the scratches embedded into the table. "Like, it's nothing."

"Always these good advices." Niall leans back. "I'm going to mess up even more just to get advice."

"I can give you advice without you needing to screw up." Zayn stares down the empty wrapper and ketchup packets. "Like, if you're confused about something, it's always good to write down what you like and what you don't."

"Anything else?"

"Hm," Zayn hums until he looks up. "When I was young, my mom told me to always have eye contact when I'm talking to someone." He even points right at the corner. The mistake Niall did is look right where he's pointing.

"Y-yeah?" Niall looks down his face instead. "That's difficult."

"You already do it." Zayn tells him, and he looks back up just to fall back in temptations again. "It's a general tip—a habit to keep in mind."

"I'll remember it." Niall claps both his hands together and that's what he looks at for the rest of the night.

* * *

Niall starts his Monday off with two problems that can't seem to go away. It's haunting his mind and he can't function right. The one day the cafeteria is having warm and delicious pizza, Niall's just staring at it. To his dismay, his friends are no help either—staring at him, counting the minutes they've been waiting for Niall to react.

"Are you alright?" Jade waves her hand in front of his face.

"I didn't get any sleep." Niall mutters, staring blankly into his pizza.

"Why's that?" Harry picks off the pepperoni from his slice and puts it on Niall's plate instead.

"I..." Niall exhales. "I think I like Zayn."

"Hold up." Jade leans off the table. "The most complicated guy we've ever hung out with, who nearly started a war between your girlfriend, he's the one you like?"

"I thought we settled with Cristina." Harry sips his juice box.

"Why do you keep saying we?" Niall exhales at Harry. "She's my girlfriend."

"Don't be a sleaze bag!" Jade exclaims. "That's all I'm telling you now. Don't be that guy."

"I can't break up with her even if I want to."

"Why not?" Jade asks abruptly fast. "Didn't get her pregnant, did you?"

"No!" Niall shakes his head. "She did suggest on the postcard that she wanted me back. It was sweet." He's still not sure about that.

"Did you want her back?"

"Kind of. Not really. No." Niall doesn't want her anytime.

Niall can't recall when the feelings suddenly came. Maybe it was the burgers and fries he and Zayn had last night which made Niall realize there's more to Zayn than what everyone thinks or sees from him. Maybe he liked him from before. Or it might just be the weird facts that reminded Niall that he and his mother are so alike. He gives anyone props for being so outspoken in a world where opinions and facts are judged constantly. He's one of those people who do judge. Though, to live with one and to know one isn't all that bad.

"She's gonna kill you. You're gonna break up with her and it's not even summer yet." Jade shakes her head.

"But, really... You like Zayn?" Harry asks quietly.

"He's got one of the most complicated personalities I've ever seen." Jade continues to shake her head. "I can't explain it."

"You don't know him like I do. Complicated or not. I like it. I like talking to him." Because Zayn's got a lot to speak on other than Vogue or the fall line of Gucci even when he can be the face of those designers.

"I don't think I've seen him smile. He's like Edward Scissorhands." She huffs. 

"So what if he's different?" Niall shrugs, looking down afterwards.

"And what if he's not? What if you're only supposed to be friends?" Jade's right and Niall hates it when people are right about the advice of being just friends.

"Then we're friends and nothing more." Niall can't even look at Jade when he admits the discontentment he has of being just friends with Zayn. There's a chance in his mind. It can happen. 

"Here's what you do," Jade starts. "You hang out with Cristina more and hope for the best that you like her instead of Zayn."

But that's the thing: he doesn't want to like Cristina more than Zayn. Jade's only saying that for good intentions—in case something bad happens if Zayn finds out Niall's got a bit of feelings for him. It's like a pre-rebound, at the worst possible time yet. He's got his exams coming up, and he at least needs 1 more tutor session before he feels safe and good approaching his English Exam. Maybe he'll ask Cristina.

But at the end of the day, when it's 2:55, and everybody is out and ready to leave—Zayn's the first one to catch him out of anybody, and Niall's never noticed it before how captivating he looks—wearing his plaid shirt buttoned down all the way up to his neck with a part of it tucked into his jeans. He's infamous for jeans—he must have like 20 pairs with different shade and fitting, sometimes ripped, sometimes very clean. He looks like a geek with mixture of goth and punk and Niall doesn't mind at all.

"Hey." Zayn greets him.

"Hi." Niall grins, leaning off his back foot. He's making sure there's space between them, enough for Niall not to have to talk to himself in his mind saying how good Zayn smells. Probably a Calvin Klein perfume.

"What type of music do you listen to? Just asking."

"I listen to whatever I get it." Niall shrugs. And, he's very picky. If one song by the Backstreet Boys or NYSYNC isn't on a mix-tape, he won't listen to it.

“Okay. That’s tight. Um, this is totally irrelevant to what I just asked but I need a lifeguard. I’m thinking of going with my sister to the beach. And I’m bringing Tino along, and then I remembered we—“

Niall shakes his head, “Don't worry about it, I’ll go with you.”

“Really appreciate it, Niall. I just don’t wanna be hanging with her while she’s got her friends around. She’s 13…”

“I know the feeling.” Niall sighs through his nose. 

“You have a little sibling?

“I’m the little sibling, Zayn.” Niall snorts. There's only so much kids his mom wanted. Even when Niall was born, despite the two years, his mom admitted he wasn't planned at all. Their mistakes gave him nightmares for a week. “Daughn didn’t wanna hang with me until this year.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right. You're cool all ways.” Niall smiles as his thank you. He could never be observant or aware of anybody like him. 

Zayn avoids the glances; he's looking out to the parking lot instead and decides to open his mouth again when he spots his car. "Do you need a ride?"

For someone who doesn’t go out a lot—Zayn owns a pretty cool 70’ Dodge Challenger; painted black with chrome rims, a new bumper, and a new grille. Niall’s very oblivious on cars, but given Zayn being a mechanic at his family's Auto Shop, he knows what he’s doing and it’s a good thing.

Yes! If I was going home, Niall thinks. "No. I'm heading out with Cristina. We're going over to her place to study."

Zayn nods, taking his steps back towards the parking lot. "Don't burn out. I'll see you later."

Niall waves as Zayn goes. What a predicament he's in.

* * *

Cristina lives three blocks away from Niall, so he's not too far from his home. He's only over to take Jade's advice into consideration. It's not going so well when Cristina reading Vogue is a priority than him being around. He’s already leaning against the door and she doesn’t even notice.

She must have been talking this whole time for Niall to snap back to her voice when her bubble popped over lips. "So like, have you heard? Leigh's back with Jordan."

"Interesting." Niall exhales a heavy breath, holding the backpack strap he has hooked around his shoulder, books and pencils packed inside.

"But she just hooked up with James like a day ago. Muy loca."

"Cool." Niall rolls his eyes. His reply is very dry. Obviously, this is coming from someone who knows everyone like he grew up with them from preschool, and hearing stories—as juicy as it sounds—doesn't interest him.

"What's wrong?" She looks at the first spot he was at before he got up to walk to the door.

"Am I even here to you?"

"Yes. Silly, I'm talking to you, aren't I?"

"It's always you that talks." And when you talk, it's stupid stuff! Niall holds back on that part.

"That's because I always have interesting stories to share while you complain about god knows what." Cristina rolls her eyes at him. Some girlfriend.

"Should I just go home?" Niall points his thumb at the door as he holds the knob.

"No. Baby, no." She gets up from her bed and holds Niall's hand over the knob. "I'm sorry. I don't have a lot of people to talk to. And it just so happens you're the only one who stays around."

God, how he falls so short, always falling for her soft voice and affectionate touches. He holds his hand on her lower back, smiling down at her. "I like being around." He’ll believe that if he keeps telling himself all the time.

"You're so sweet." She laughs, throwing her arm around Niall's neck when he leans down, pressing their lips together.

Niall's not thinking right now—he's thinking they're kissing too fast and sloppy that they shouldn't stop now. But he's got to really study for English, and he feels like a complete pig right now.

Niall sits down on the edge of the bed with Cristina, her on his lap, skirt exposing the higher reaches of her thighs. Niall presses his hand over it, trying not to think about anything other than her tits. 

"No one's home." Cristina whispers right into his ear.

"What are you suggesting?" Niall exhales. "Because I-I'm thinking homework."

"Yeah, sure. Homework." Cristina huffs. "You know, we never really got to this part last year."

That's because Niall wasn't thinking about it as much as he is now. He's never really told anyone he had sex before. "I really need help on English, Cristina."

"You asked the wrong person, hun.” She says with shit-eating grin.

Maybe it was his burning crush on Zayn that had the clouds pushed away from thinking so clearly. She tastes like cherry, and he reminds her a lot of forbidden fruit. He doesn't like the taste of neither.

This is all too far from what Niall really wants.

If there's a moment to feel bad, it would be now. All he wanted to do was talk to her and have a normal conversation, which leads straight to kissing Cristina when he doesn't seem to find the drive to—like that's a given solution to all his problems, just to kiss her. He can't break up with her now, can he? Not this fast. She's not even going to help him study for his English exam. That's at least one good reason to break up with her.

She's like a trend—always changing. Except, she's always changing back. The next day she goes back to being the talkative and arrogant girl that she is, and Niall's only survival tactic is to talk to himself.

_Hey, Niall. What's wrong?_

My girlfriend won't shut up about her damn Vogue magazine when there's the Gulf War going on.

_You don't even care about the Gulf War! Not even current events._

Maybe I do.

_Zayn will like that._

Zayn won't like anything. Won't like me. I'm going to accept that now, and go back to my girlfriend.

Niall spaces back into reality.

"So this magazine says, I know you very well.” She’s doing one of those couple’s quiz. Niall’s pretty sure you have to know your significant other. He pulls the magazine, only to make a face.

“You're like Johnny Depp and I'm Winona Ryder." She continues. This is all supposed to be romantic because her head is on his lap, but if Niall actually looks back at their relationship—they were both madly infatuated with each other. And it was all so very brief.

Favorite Color: Beige

Actual favorite color: Blue

Favorite Food: Pizza

Actual favorite food: Anything chicken or beef

Best friend(s): Me, that Harry guy

ACTUAL best friend(s): Harry, Jade

"You know me better than me." Niall's eyebrows raise with a smug smile.

* * *

Since Cristina was no help with anything, Zayn's probably his only hope if he's still awake at 9. Surely, he is; he called him and he sounded perfectly fine. As if he really sleeps at 9. He seems like he'd have a lot of things to talk about if he had somebody to talk with.

He knocks on his door, hugging his binder with a pen in his pocket. He runs a hand through his hair so it doesn't look like he just came from a hook-up session when Cristina grabbed his hair a few times.

Zayn's sister opens the door. He's never really seen her before, up close. She looks exactly like Zayn, but well—a lady version with a lot more hair. She looks coolly at him, before realizing it's her neighbour.

"And you are..." She waits.

"Niall Horan." He answers. "We're neighbours."

"I'm Waliyha." She introduces herself. She wouldn't have if it wasn't a social courtesy to.

"Nice to meet you." Niall grins as nice as he can. "Is your brother home?"

"He's up in his room." She opens the door wider. 

Knowing them since last year and not having to do anything about it, it feels wrong to just enter and walk into his room like they've known each other. Waliyha shuts the door behind him and proceeds to go to the living room where she must've been. She's expecting him to go up there by himself. Huh.

Another door to knock on—he waits a few seconds, hearing the music stop in his room until it opens and Zayn's in his pyjamas—as Niall presumes. It's a crew neck cropped shirt that shows his stomach, and Niall's watching the subtle outlines of his muscles around his stomach before he's back in the real world. As for his bottoms, they're like track or work out pants, cuffs around the ankles.

"Niall?" Zayn questions. "What are you doing here?

"Are you studying?" He asks.

"Y-yeah. I'm reading up on the notes from our novel, hoping the essay isn't as horrible as I'm making it out to be in my head." Zayn explains. "You wanna do some last-minute studying?"

"Yes, please!" He says way too eager and it puts a smile on Zayn's face. "Can you help me figure out how to write?"

"How to write?" Zayn laughs. "Okay, sit down."

Niall looks around, scanning his room for a place to sit. The floor would be bad for his bum and back, it seems like Zayn's occupied on his chai at his desk so that leaves him one place left. "On your bed?"

"Somewhere fine for you." Zayn closes his door, and sits back down on his desk chair.

The floor may be an uncomfortable spot for Niall to sit on but he can't exactly make his stay one where he feels like home when this is his first time being here in Zayn's house. And his room is actually very beautiful—there's a lot of life into it for a room that's all white, especially the one wall made into a triangle because of the slope roof, it's got a sick wallpaper of a tree in the middle of a field in summer.

"The one thing I figured out is that you need to know what your writing style is." Zayn explains. "It doesn't matter how complex your sentence is or how intelligent you sound—it's you that's writing. So, if you're neither of those things, don't try for it just yet."

"Okay." Niall nods, opening his notebook.

"You're gonna write me a story about summer and what you're excited to do. Anything you look forward to doing. Anything you feel."

Niall looks down at his paper. It's easier said than done when Niall's got no figment of imagination, and no sense of direction on the introduction. At least Zayn has faith in him that he'll learn how to write. Which is why he'll put anything down that he's thinking.

After a twenty-minute silence between them, Niall's announcing that he's finish and Zayn's giving him all his attention.

"What?" Niall laughs sheepishly.

"I'm gonna need you to read it." He's thankful that Zayn doesn't embarrass him. Only comforting him with a beaming smile, Niall laughs brokenly.

"You should've told me that!" Niall shuts his notebook. "I'm gonna sound stupid."

"No, you won't!" Suddenly, Zayn sits right beside Niall. If his heart wasn't racing just being in Zayn's room, it's on a marathon. It's intimate without the pressure of kissing. Even when he the idea comes to mind while feeling their thighs brushing together, he doesn't want to break this honest bond. "Trust me."

"Fine." Niall slowly turns back to his pages. Zayn's head leans closer to his to catch a glimpse of his notebook."Um, okay... 'Even if summer hasn't started yet, it already feels like it begun for me. I find myself stuck in many problems, which certainly tells me that my summer has already started. California gets a lot of sun, but I wish it would rain because I love thunderstorms. With July coming, I'm sure that the sun will be hotter. What I like about the summer is that the days are longer and I get to be out with extended curfew. Someone shouldn't have goals set in the summer when it's about relaxing. Yet, my goals this summer are: be brave to do what scares me the most, make what I do worth my while, grow so I could become a new person in fall, and finally—not to spend hours waiting on something to happen when I've only got two months. Last summer was built up on decisions that would only last me a moment. This summer, I want an experience with my friends and family.'" 

"That was really good." Zayn laughs.

"You'd probably have a better one if you wrote as well."

"That's the thing with English that teachers shouldn't focus on." Zayn sighs. "There's always room for improvement in writing. Especially when writing is based solely on different ideas and perspectives. Writing should be based on one's improvements instead of a teacher's epitome."

"What do you mean?"

"You and I are different people that can't have the same point of views and ideas. A teacher can't grade me and compare me to you when you have your own style and I have mine." Zayn shrugs. "A teacher should grade based on one's progress, because students write blindly. We don't know who's standard we're writing for and whom to impress. That's what I mean."

"So, did I reach your standards?"

"I liked it a lot. I felt you loud and clear."

And Zayn includes tips of his own that their teachers would never share, like not stopping to fix mistakes. Zayn says once he's in his world of writing, it's hard to get out. If Niall stops to fix mistakes, then coming back would be twice as difficult and everything will feel different. He'll end up losing his flow and emotion that he'll have to find it again somehow. Teachers don't tell their students these things when they really should. If Niall wasn't so shy with his cheeks flushed while feeling all yellow inside, he'd tell Zayn he's a good teacher. 

And apparently, that's all to that lesson. Niall's leaving with a full page of dabbling and five bullets with Zayn's tips beside each one.

He wishes he could stay longer than the 40 minutes he spent in his room writing and looking at the things that distinguish Zayn. He's got a shelf of comic books and graphic novels, a small hulk figurine on top of the shelf, a few bottles of cologne by his table, and vinyl covers taped on his wall. There was _Sixpence, Boyz II Men, Nirvana, Green Day, Radiohead, Tupac, Biggie, NWA, Cranberries, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey_ , and even the welcoming party from _NSYNC_. He's got even more on the second highest part of his shelf, along with mix-tapes and other cassettes. 

But he really should get some sleep. His exam is at 10 tomorrow, but other than that, he'll be free for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

Summer _finally_ came, and nothing felt like anything had changed. Niall's friends hadn't flown to the other side of the world. They were still here, sleeping in like he was—finally making the alarm clock retire for the two months he doesn't have to get up at 7AM. Hah, never mind. In about a week, it'll be even worse. The thing about being a lifeguard is he's going to have to be around before the people come. It'll be good money, since throughout his summer vacation, he has to be on the look out for eight hours, every other day. Remind him not to wear his sunglasses all the time.

Niall hasn't found the courage to break up with Cristina. All he's been doing is complaining in his mind about her annoying behaviour, when he’s enjoying the part where she's always up to play. But that can't be a road block for him. Not when his crush on Zayn keeps growing, and it makes his heart run fast.

Now that Niall realized that he'll be at the beach non-stop this summer, taking Zayn's dog there while his sisters and her friends are around is actually a bad plan. Another beach day, great. The exciting part about being at the beach would probably only be Zayn's company, and Tino's.

Maybe it's not something Niall's ever noticed, or maybe he was just too focused on his face to notice anywhere on his body. Not until Zayn's pulling his shirt off and being bare chest, Niall sees the tattoo of the bird and the leaf down his nape, the Arabic script on his left collarbone while Friday is just above the left collarbone, and right around the same area is this skull wearing a top hat. Then there's the two that Niall's eyes don't even have to make out—he can see the full-blown lips with wings on his chest and the writing at his hip that Niall can barely read.

"You're all tattoos." Niall says in astonishment. "Do they even have any meaning?"

"Not necessarily." Zayn shrugs. "It's like an impulsive problem for me. But I enjoy them."

"Did it hurt?" Niall says quietly.

"Collarbones did. Everything else was a tickle."

"God, I thought you were like those guys who never did anything. When in reality, you have possibly done everything."

"I just keep to myself and people just fill in the blanks as to what they wanna see." Zayn laughs. "The guy who never does anything? I hear the rumours at school, Niall. Everyone believes I ran off last summer into hiding like I always do."

"Did you?" Niall queries.

"Yes and no. I didn't run off to go to juvi or anything like that. I left this place to do a road trip. Something I felt like I needed to do."

"You have one hell of a life. Why didn't you leave for anywhere this summer? That's not all of the states that you can see."

"I'm kind of waiting on something better than barbecue, tequila shots or gambling here."

"I don't think you should wait. Sometimes, we wait for things for too long, and we forget we have our own lives." Niall's voice falters when he looks off to the side.

How backwards of him to say. It's like his subconscious is really pushing to break up with Cristina. What scares him the most is that Zayn doesn't say anything. He just smiles at him, and grabs Tino's leash and pulls him towards the water.

At least Tino's having fun. Despite being blind, he's having the time of his life with Zayn, going closer to Zayn when he calls Tino because he gets too far into the water. He's calm. Niall's never seen a dog so calm before that Niall would mistake it for a large stuffed toy. 

Tino jogs out the water, and stops right before the beach towels. He starts to shake his body, splashing Niall before sitting down by his foot with his paws under his chin.

"Is he okay?" Niall leans forward to pet Tino's wet fur.

"He's tired. He never really ran around in our backyard or our house before so he doesn't have that much exercise." Zayn exhales, moving the wet strands of hair away from his face. "Reminds me of me."

It's completely out of nowhere when Zayn pulls him up. Who would have thought he'd be the one to drag him into the water? Shoving each other here and there, Niall wishes he never liked Zayn. Just to like somebody who makes him feel something after months of having constantly different crushes that fly by like nothing, then to realize they won't ever like him back, almost makes him wish he never met Zayn. He should've continued ignoring him—playing him off as one of the freaks from school who never talk to anybody. Then, he would've been so repelled. If Niall hadn't gotten to know him, he wouldn't have been so comfortable like they are now—laughing like they've known each other all their entire lives, pushing each other off balance, and then wrestling each other to the point that no one's laughing anymore, and just hugging. Like they've ever even hugged before.

Embracing his hips from behind, Niall's leaned against Zayn's body, his faces nearly against Niall's side of the face, feeling his breath ghosting on his ear. Niall swallows; never has he ever thought he'd be so close to Zayn like this, hands over on top of his hands like this is normal to them. 

That's what he doesn't like. That it's not normal, and it won't ever happen between them because Zayn's not like that. Niall wishes he was normal.

He pulls himself away. "I-I'm going to get my boat."

Zayn lets him run back to his stuff, following behind where he sits on the beach towel to dry off. Niall's using everything not to look up at him or let anything slip from his mouth. He hates himself right now; not knowing what to do at a time like this. When he takes his motorized toy boat, his sister had come with her volleyball.

"Hi guys." Waliyha crouches on her side of the towel. "Do you guys wanna join us?"

"I'm okay. Thank you." Niall grins just as he holds up the boat and controller. 

"We're okay, Waliyha." Zayn tells her.

They're up in two minutes, letting the boat ride up over waves. It's about to flip very soon but it's stable for now, very slow even for Niall's taste.

"This thing sucks." Niall starts to smack the controller in his palm.

"Did you watch Titanic?" Zayn takes the controller from Niall. "We could always drive this into the rocks like it's an iceberg."

"Okay, I'll be in charge of the soundtrack." Niall starts to laugh. 

Celine Dione would be proud of Niall's attempt on her song. Maybe the artist with the flute, not Celine Dione herself. If she had done that herself, all the props to her for. As soon as Niall hit the high note of the last flute solo, the boat's stuck between a tight wedge of rocks, and that's as far as it can go before the tide pulls it into the sea. Maybe one day, scuba divers would find it sunken to the bottom of the ocean and Niall will be reminded of this moment in his life where he could've had something good but he's not someone who can get that.

* * *

If anyone feels like exploding, it's Niall. And what better way to avoid someone who makes him tick than ignoring them and giving all his attention to somebody else that doesn't even look at him the same way?

He's been at Cristina's house non-stop for about two weeks now, listening to her talk about all these things irrelevant to Niall. He's been trying to like her again like last summer, forcing himself to become this avid Vogue reader like Cristina. All he's done is read up on Anna Wintour's biography and he doesn't even remember anything. 

Niall drops the magazine, and falls back on Cristina's bed. He lets out one heavy breath that even Cristina, who's sitting beside him, turns to look at Niall.

"What's wrong?" She asks, then with a smirk on her face, her leg goes over his other side of the hip. "I can make it go away."

"No, I'm fine." Niall shakes his head. "Not today, Cristina. I'm not in the mood." It isn't worth it to be around with her anymore.

"But you've been in the mood everyday." Her voice turns husky. "I just wanna make you feel better." She pouts. She tries—that's all that matters.

"Making out with me doesn't really fix it." Niall rolls his eyes.

"So then how do you fix it? Shopping?" She asks.

 _Oh my goodness._ "Listen Cristina, I think this isn't working out. You and I," Niall tries to get up. Suddenly, Cristina scoffs, and pulls herself off of him.

"You're breaking up with me. Again?" She yells. Her face is red now, and Niall's off the bed, closing the distance between him and the door.

"We've got different tastes." He shrugs. There isn't any kind of excuse he could say to make it better. If he makes it better for her, it could be worse for him. "You're also not the person I thought you were in the postcards."

"I never wrote any! I was only dating you for payback!" She grumps. Niall could hear her breathing. Well, there goes Niall going to Harry and Daughn for advice. "Get the fuck out of my house. Take your stupid jacket with you." She picks it up from her chair, rolling it into a ball before pitching it towards him. Thank goodness, he's been cold without it.

"For payback? And I still dumped you?" Niall exhales. "That's sad. Later, beeotch!"

He rushes out of the house before Cristina could even have the last word in. Always needing the last word in. He ran about two houses before he decided it was good to walk home. He'll probably burn this sweater now. It smells like old lady perfume.

The first thing he's got in his hand is his new cellphone, dialing Harry's house phone and waiting for it to go through. He should feel outraged over this humiliating break up but he's in so much relief. It's like the grasp around his neck has finally disappeared.

"Harold's residence." Harry picks up.

"Hey." Niall quickly greets him. "Something _amazing_ happened."

"Marky Mark is over for dinner?" Harry chuckles at himself.

"I broke up with the bitch! I-I'm—" Niall begins to stammer. He turns his head left and right, patiently waiting for the Cadillac to pass by before he can cross the street.

"Really?" Jade yells through the phone.

"It's okay. Would you like to get some ice cream?" Harry offers.

Ice cream sounds great but he doesn't have a craving for a cold dessert to enjoy just because he doesn't have a girlfriend anymore.

Harry opens his door, welcoming Niall's presence. With his freedom, it means he could get ice cream without a thought of Cristina. That horrible, self-centred girl who didn't wear Adidas because it was out of style.

* * *

Working from the beach shack is boring without a partner to spend the whole entire day with. He's downed about two water bottles and it has only been eight hours. Only. There is two more hours until the lifeguard shift ends and he can be on his way home. 

Since the start of summer, there has only been three accidents. One was a little boy straying deeper into the sea so the closest lifeguard had jumped in to save him while the rest of them directed attention and arm towards the problem. The second was an unsupervised toddler waddling towards the sea—Niall had to get her before she touched the waves. The last one was a body surfing accident that took a girl right to the continental slope and pulled her deep into the ocean. Niall got her back with the ambulance waiting at the beach—highlight of everybody's day in Santa Monica.

He has sunburns over his cheeks, nose, shoulders, and arms. They're all red, and he's got about 21 layers of tan right now, maybe even more when he works 8 hours every other day—doing the same old routine of rotation and walks down the beach.

His shift ends at 6. Sometimes it's one of those days he feels the need to watch the sun set before the opportunity could be taken away from him. His walkie talkie has been turned off and the small tape player is beside him while he lets a tape play that Zayn had given Harry who had given to Niall to borrow. Borrow is exaggerated because Harry's really digging the mix-tape.

_Take me to the place I love, take me all the way_

With quiet moments like this, he has time to read the postcards he was given two months ago by Cristina. He can never forget that these actually happened. The voice he hears in his head is way nicer and sensitive than Cristina's. He was convinced it was never written by her at all if it makes him think about the ten thousand sunsets and sunrises he's going to have and experience—not just see. It's hopeful and beautiful, even when he can feel the tension and anxiety through the imprint of the pen through the card. It's got many creases and uneven folds that he's bent and pressed in his pocket all this time. Miami could be just one of his favourites. Both of them are. He can slowly feel his mind losing over these postcards.

They're back in his pocket just when he's about to leave. The important rule of being on duty inside the lifeguard shack last is that he should lock the doors in case people try to sneak inside and they tend to. There is nothing but items for the first aid kit, radios, walkie-talkies, the lifeguard ring for shack number 3, and the lifeguard tube. Unless someone wants Band-Aids and ice packs for themselves, nobody would think to break in.

Harry's supposed to pick him up from the parking lot, but he's now left waiting on the block, watching for a car to roll in. About an hour has passed; Niall's putting on his lifeguard hoodie with a wince because of his aching shoulder. It's cold, and there is no sign of Harry.

His cellphone is in his hand and against his ear—decision that should've been made the first time he decided to rely on somebody who isn't easily distracted on parties.

"Hello?"

Niall stutters. "U-uh, is Zayn there?" 

"I'll get him. Hold on,"

Niall wants to cry. Not because Harry stood him up, not because the entire day—he spent his ass on his feet. Everything is just so overwhelming that it caught up to him. Since it was 9, work was nothing more than just work. Not until he had this moment to sit down—like this is really going to be his entire summer.

There's a click on the phone. "It's Zayn." 

"Hey Zayn. It's Niall." Niall pouts his lips out, pulling the sweater over his chest. "A-are you busy?"

"I'm working." That explains the loud clank and whirring that Niall can hear.

"Oh shit." Niall rubs his face. " _Ohh_ _shit_."

"What's wrong?" He asks hurriedly. The gesture is nice, but it's nearly 8 in the evening, and he needs more than a gesture to take him home.

"I—I'm just in Santa Monica. I just finished my shift," About two hours ago. "I have no money for a cab—maybe just a damn burger at the pier." He blows out a breath from his nostril. Long enough Zayn could intervene and say what he should say but that wasn't what he had in mind. Niall lets his head hang between his knees. "Harry was supposed to come get me, but I think he's high at Jordan's party. I have sunburns because I forgot my sunscreen because I'm stupid. This blows."

"You're pink right now?" Zayn's attempt to make this situation light isn't all that inconspicuous that Niall's smiling through the stress and pain he's had this entire day.

"I'm a blush pink with a tint of rose red."

Zayn's laugh is getting him through his stress at least. "Okay, I'll get you some aloe vera on my way there. I'll meet you at Pier Burger. You should eat."

"I have ten dollars." Niall mumbles, lips barely moving. He can't hear the mechanical noises anymore. "Do you want anything?"

"Just save me a spot."

* * *

Niall had calmed down after a few bites out of his burger. He went on a new path—one with crispy seafood. It's salty but good on his end. He's satisfied and full and that's all that matters. 

In a plaid shirt and jeans, and not his oily and stained uniform, Zayn had eventually met Niall in half an hour with two bottles between them.

"I have sunscreen." Niall takes it anyway, along with the aloe vera Niall starts to read.

"And you're literally red all over."

"How much do I owe you back?" Niall tries not to smile.

"Uh." Zayn exhales. "Just owe it to me you use the sunscreen?"

"Okay." Niall starts to laugh. "How was work?"

Zayn thinks, but he doesn't have to think about this. "Your car is running great."

"I knew you could do it!" Niall's hands reach across the table for Zayn, but it slips back on his own side. He takes the milkshake he was hiding beside him, and slides it over the top for Zayn to take. His token of his thanks—an Oreo cookie shake.

"And how was work for you?" The first sign of a smile was good enough for Niall. Zayn pulls the straw out, sucking from the bottom of the straw.

Niall told him about the lady who went body surfing. She didn't suffer from anything, but she probably did grow a phobia to water after being taken to the hospital for it. It's an insult to say that problems like these are the things that make a lifeguard's vigilant life interesting. Aside from knowing there are 100 victims from drowning in beaches in USA, nothing major happens to the twenty different lifeguards around Venice Beach and Santa Monica.

The ride back is quiet. Zayn's car is on manual transmission which Niall would never try to learn in his entire life. It smells like very sweet fruit candy that makes Niall want to breath in and out every second like he's running out of air. But now all he can smell is the aloe vera gel cream for his burns. He slips his arms off from his sweater for his shoulder. The cold gel is soothing over the blemished skin of his shoulders and face. He could fall asleep with the cold gel seeping through his skin right now.

"You have good tapes." Niall mutters. 

"Believe it or not, they're my dad's." Zayn makes a turn into a new street with lots of traffic.

"You have a cool dad?" Niall laughs.

"He helped me with your car yesterday. Made your car better. My mom made it even better than better."

"Zayn, I only make so much this summer. I don't think I have an option for better than working." Working car that could drive him from A to B is all he needs. He won't go farther than 50 miles because he has no business driving to places other than Santa Monica or school.

"Better is what we promise to customers and friends." Zayn gives a short smile.

"I'm your friend." Niall nods. "I am."

"I'm glad you are. My cousin isn't someone I want to be hanging out with everyday." Zayn looks down briefly before they can smile at each other. Haider must be less than what everyone thinks of him to be for Zayn.

As for his friend driving him home, he's still a mystery. Other than not being able to swim in deep waters and having a pet blind dog, Zayn is nothing but an extraordinary 17-year-old who works at his family's auto-shop, has tattoos all over his body that no one exactly knows about but him and a few others who would ever give Zayn the time of day just to pay attention to him.

And if they ever paid attention to him, they would know just how much he should say if they let him, and it's more than two syllables and topics. They would also see more than just a straight face or an empty stare if they paid attention to him more than just what they expect from someone with a cousin to have as their only friend.

"Y-you're on the highway." Niall feels the bump of the road when Zayn tries to merge into the left lane. 

"I have to close the shop, is that fine?" 

"Uh, yeah." It's half an hour past nine. Niall's growing past his patience to be home. However—being so exhausted, so burned out. He has another shift tomorrow at nine in the morning. Zayn did pick him up, brought along extra sunscreen and some aloe vera for his burns, and help make his car. So he can't say no. No is not an option for him.

This long ride is also an excuse to listen to his dad's mix-tapes because he simply can't just ask Zayn for it. All these old classics from 1960 and 1970 is so refreshing to hear. How could anyone exclude the Jackson 5 from any mix-tape? 

Not Zayn—he's singing along under his breath, tapping his fingers on the wheel, toes tapping on the brake pedal while his foot is planted down on the gas.

By the time they reached the garage, Niall's eyes are open for the first time since the freeway, and there aren't lights but the night sky through the high rectangular windows that don't show any light at all. The car isn't on because the headlights weren't, nor were the glow lights of the miles a car would go.

"Zayn?" Niall blurted out. He wasn't there beside him; he would've smelled his cologne. 

The lights turned on, blinding him completely for a stunning second. It's a circles behind his eyes, bright flashes that won't disappear behind his eyes. But he sees a car; a bright red coloured car.

"What?" Niall got out from the car. That couldn't be the same tin can he bought for $300 from Harry. It looks like they just bought it for a retail price of $20,000.

Zayn's sitting by the stairs, keys hanging from his fingertips. He's smiling with his eyes, every muscle on his face that makes Niall's stomach twist and turn and look away. That's a smile more valuable than the car he's supposed to drive back home.

"Zayn, I paid $300 for this scrap of metal that you turned into what I will use for my whole entire teenage dream."

"Teenage dream?" Zayn starts to laugh. "What's your teenage dream, my friend?"

"Right now," Niall sighs. "Just to figure out my life. Everything is so darn mysterious. Did I ever tell you someone left me love notes in my locker? I did, didn't I?" 

Shit. "Love notes?" Zayn makes a twisted face.

"Yeah. From Miami and Vegas, believe it or not."

"I thought those happened in movies." 

"I guess it happens in real life too." Niall shrugs.

"And what do you think about them?" Zayn asks. "The love notes?"

Niall just read them during the sunset. Many more times before today—filling his mind with fantasies and stories. If there's anything to remember, it's one thing. "They don't have to be afraid of making a move."

Zayn chortles, his eyes narrowing at Niall. "But you don't even know them."

"Doesn't matter." Niall shrugs. "I-I can't explain it, okay?"

Zayn nods. The keys fall into Niall's hands now. That should've happened as soon as they got here. Niall shouldn't have even talked about anything with him. Telling him anything would only lead to liking him more. Calling him up for a ride would only lead to his mind being filled up about stupid Zayn.

That is something hard to ever live by, and so easy to believe the hate he'll conceive will help him out. It won't.

"Wait, Niall—" Zayn cuts into Niall's thoughts. "I have to tell you something."

"Can it wait 'til tomorrow?" Niall rubs his eyes.

"N-no. Well, it can but..." The stuttering is enough for Niall to pocket his keys into his sweater. "I don't want you to think about these love notes."

If he stared at Zayn, he'd know his intentions. But knowing them just might cut his expectations in half. "I'm probably being stupid about them. I mean, I only got two and it just stopped." 

Zayn shakes his head. "They're just notes. They're not important to what's real."

"What are you talking about?"

"The notes weren't for you." Zayn confesses. 

To puzzle it together between the ten seconds he's supposed to respond before Zayn starts to press him for a response back—it would be like a whole slide show of his life of small moments he shouldn't have paid attention but now, understands why he should've.

Harry uses his locker more. And if Zayn wanted to talk to Niall, he would have but he didn't before everything happened. Niall wasn't anything like Harry so there couldn't be possibly some kind of chance here for him to get what he wants even though his dad made it known he can. 

But now he's confused, yet he's certain that being told the notes weren't for him means they weren't for him, and how stupid Niall is being right now.

"So you wrote them?" Niall had said the words he didn't think about that he thought wouldn't hurt as much.

"I did. They were meant for Harry."

"I can help you." Niall cuts in. His mind is blooming with ideas. "I can talk to Harry. He likes you. He thinks you're cool. It'll be great."

"That's not—" Zayn exhales. Niall slots his keys into the small lock, unlocking the door before he slips inside. It smells like pink clouds if they had a smell.

"I'll see you later. Thanks for the car." His hands are gripping this wheel for the first time—the vehicle he's going to pay with his own money. "I'll pay you back when I can. I promise."

Like he said to himself, lying to himself won't help him out.

* * *

He tries to make his own mix-tapes. They take time and effort and he thought by now his patience would have matured in some way for him to work on one. But he's gone through three tapes in four hours, heard thuds and movement from the hallway—probably because it's a Saturday and their cleaning lady Mary is starting with their second floor. 

Using Zayn's would result in very horrible things like feelings to overwhelm inside of him which nobody needs. Especially not on his Saturday where he doesn't have to work. His sunburns have healed and he's now tanner than any summer. He feels good—in a great mood to sulk but he won't because he feels good.

"Hey Niall." Daughn doesn't feel like knocking anywhere she goes. Not even the bathroom. "Wanna take me shopping?"

"Now that I have a car, you think I'm going to drive you to places?"

"I'll pay for lunch." 

Niall blinks. "Where to, ma'am?"

He's putting use to his car that isn't towards the beach at least. That's what matters. Gas is getting expensive—and especially with all these stupid pollution problems, there's a tiny bit of guilt growing inside of him about driving with dinosaurs fueling his car.

Daughn buys him an In-n-Out combo. He's munching on fries on a bus bench outside the Louis store on Rodero while he's waiting for his sister to come out since food isn't permitted inside their store—especially greasy fries. 

Though when she's done, it's in good timing because he wasn't in the mood to deal with Cristina. He forgot they still live in the same city. Chances of seeing her around this place are always high.

"You must have lots on your mind, and I'm the one dating Parker." Daughn puts her seatbelt on. Niall's turning his head away from Cristina's view.

"I wanna tell you but I've been feeling down, Daughn." Niall tries to focus on a radio station. All he hears is static and fizz. 

"You can tell me. I won't tell anybody." Daughn puts a hand on his shoulder—a firm one.

The reality of their relationship is that he's never spoken to his sister about anything that exposes feelings relatively other than angry or sad. And sad is a broad word that could be read in so many ways. Someone could be sad about death, then there's someone like Niall who could be sad because someone he likes doesn't like him back, and it sounds more childish than ever.

"Zayn wrote the love notes." Niall looks at his mirror.

"He likes you?" Daughn takes her hand back, bags rustling between her legs.

There goes the bomb. "It was for Harry."

Daughn must've seen saw the look on his face, or the distraction the led Niall to merge to oncoming traffic. 

"Niall!" Daughn yells through the honking.

"Shit." Niall hisses. "So you get why I'm quiet?"

"Z-zayn is just a guy," Daughn shakes her head. "He's our neighbour. We lived with him for a year. It's not like he's anything special."

"I have a problem as well." Niall sighs. "I've got to pay him this cheque for my car today. Can you hand it to him?"

She nods. "Sure." 

* * *

Niall's made at least $2,000 for the month of July. By the final week, he's got enough money for take out for lunch and dinner everyday if his family wants fried chicken and country biscuits all day. But then again, he could just spend all his money going to the new drive-in theatre everyone's been going to but him. Not like he has any kind of date to bring along with him to watch American Pie anyway. He's going to give up on that idea—he'll just watch it at a regular theatre.

By 6:40, Niall's got a sunburn on his forehead which he smeared aloe vera on. He can't be getting anymore of these. He needs a better sunscreen routine. 

He doesn't watch the sunset today because he hasn't been in the mood and he's got a change of clothes this time for a party he actually has energy for. It's a costume party at Leigh's house. With his half-ass attempt, he's going as Tom Cruise in Top Gun. If that's not creative at all after a whole day at the beach, then what is? 

He came in, party already raging with hard alcohol and marijuana joints all around. It's only a one-time involvement with some of the party attendees. The only real drug addicts in this party are people who stick themselves in the bathroom smoking joints and probably sniffing cocaine off the sink. And he knows Leigh would be furious if she heard there were drugs like cocaine happening in her own house.

It might have been a pity case of Leigh to have invited Zayn because he would have never been here with an invite just so openly given without a real reason. And any real reason wouldn't be because Leigh likes him. They've never spoken to each other. He's at the couches, squished between two other people who have no intentions of showing him any attention—dressed as sort of prince from a Disney movie it seems. They don't talk to him, he doesn't talk to them—seems like the balance of the earth has been solved. All the more reason to feel bad for ignoring him for two weeks. All the more reason he shouldn't find himself around him. 

Niall finds himself deep into a game of truth and dare where people are half naked, drunk out of their senses, with a spit swap with at least three other people. He did his dares and he's allowed to live free from torment for now. 

But just because he isn't doing them, doesn't mean torment isn't going to get to him. He knocks back his whole cup of beer just to avoid the whole sight of Harry making Zayn's wish come true for his dare. Niall couldn't watch that—not when Harry's approaching him like it's nothing, shooing the guy sitting on his right so he could take a seat himself. 

With everyone staring their way, it would make sense for Zayn to catch up on why Harry was there drunk, trying to get a kiss on both his cheeks from Zayn. His mistake was looking to where they all were; even for a short glance because they eventually saw each other for the first time tonight. And Niall had better things to do than to let it last, so he leaves mid-game. 

Zayn was right. He shouldn't have made such a big deal on love notes. They could've been written by anybody—and anybody could've been a stalker or a weirdo Niall won't date if they came up to him. Way to go, Niall—that's what happens when you let stupid things consume you. 

"Hey Niall, are you and Cristina over?" Jordan has a hand over his shoulder. His breath smells like hard liquor.

"Yeah. What about you and Leigh?"

"We broke up. For good." He exhales.

They never break up for good. Especially those two. Although, they really should. All they do is fight. And not to take sides, but all the fights are because of Jordan. All he does is argue with Leigh, and on a few occasions, make out after. They're the real roller coasters of Beverley Hills. Not to mention, it says a lot that Jordan is here at Leigh's party.

"Since you broke up, could you play seven minutes?" Jordan shrugs. "We need someone to even it out."

"Depends who I'm kissing."

"You choose a name out of a hat."

"Well," Niall sighs. "Sorry Jordan. I think I'm going to pass. I heard there was mono going around."

"That's gross." His face twists. 

"You have a joint?" Niall needs to be picked up off his as for at least a few hours. But then who's going to drive his car? Whatever.

"Yeah. I was gonna wait but it looks like you need it." He holds it out off his pocket and Niall takes it right from his fingers.

Niall thumbs his lighter to spark, the flames burning the end of the spliff. "If I finish, do you think Leigh would let me get my car tomorrow?"

Jordan shrugs. "Probably."

For half an hour, Niall and Jordan pass it between them. There's a buzz happening, just not a lot for Niall to lose his senses and mind to, become stupid all of the sudden because of some little chronic dope.

It's just worse now because Zayn moved from the couch. He's probably with Harry.

He hopes Leigh didn't make the tracks for the DJ to play because they totally suck. To everyone they're killer but Niall was in the mood for something fun like TLC. 

Niall walked out by midnight, taking a glance at his car before he can decide that he can't drive it at all right now. It's only a ten-minute walk from Leigh's house to his. 

It felt shorter when he got down to his street. He could see Daughn's lights are still on from her room. The lights from his fountain look great however. He could stare at it all night, but he really won't. That's the weed talking.

"Hey Niall." 

Niall's head turned to the voice. What a stupid move. Zayn's on his drive way. As if he's going to let that go by.

Niall slots his key into the lock. "Hey prince charming, it's past your bedtime." 

"Is it?" 

"I'm sure I'm passed mine." Quickly, Niall is pushing his door open without looking back. "Goodnight, Zayn."

* * *

Niall blows his whistle at some children.

"Stop throwing sand!"

They usually never stop unless someone more intimidating than Niall comes along and warns them for the second time. At least he's done his job by warning them the first time. And if someone complains about it, the lifeguards don't mind kicking them off the beach.

He could hear sniffing as well. There isn't supposed to be any dogs on this part of the beach. 

"Sir, there's no—" Niall looks down for a millisecond. It's a black Labrador with its eyes shut tight. "Dogs allowed here..."

If Zayn had anything better to do, it wouldn't be to come to where Niall works the day after he told him goodnight in a way where he doesn't care if he's there or not. 

Being away from him is his way of coping with this stupid mistake. If he keeps coming then it's not—it's making things worse.

Zayn pulls his dog back until he's sitting down at his feet. "Why are you avoiding me?" 

"I'm not. I'm busy. Can't you see that?" Niall presses his forehead with his hand from being burned. He can feel it burning again.

"I'm not stupid." Zayn laughs then it all fell apart. Niall looked down from his faltering chortle. "You were my friend. And the next thing I realize—I'm being ignored and avoided. If I did something—"

"I just need time." Niall sighs. "I got my hopes up on stupid love notes that weren't even for me. The least you can do is let me keep my dignity."

"It's not that bad, Niall." Zayn takes a deep breath. "It's just a simple mistake. It isn't like—"

"I'll pay you to leave, Zayn." He turns away from the sun. He could see the other lifeguards looking at him. He could just tell them Zayn wandered too far into the animal-prohibited area, that he isn't distracted from his post.

"What?" Niall's not sure if he's insulted or surprised. It's really a mix of both.

"I'll pay you to leave me alone." Niall says it quieter. 

"Why are you to talking to me like that?"

"Because there are no dogs allowed on the beach."

"I'm not leaving until you come with me to the drive-in." Zayn is slowly unwrapping the leash around his hand. "Harry told me that's why you bought a car in the first place."

"I bought it so I can have a date to drive around. To be specific, the drive-in would have been a cool place."

"It still is."

"Not with you." Niall shakes his head. "Why would I go with you after everything?"

"As your neighbour, I can tell you your car's retail price is $18,000 with the tweaks we gave it." Zayn shrugs. "Now, as your friend, all you're really paying me is $2,000 and you can take as much time as you like."

"But—" Niall grimaces. There is always some kind of but in there.

"But, I can definitely just be your neighbour." Zayn takes that one step closer to Niall's face; so close he steps backs from him. "We can say hi and bye when we get the newspaper or when I walk Tino here. Or—you can hear me out and finally tell either Harry or Jade that you finally went to the drive-in."

"$18,000 is cheap, Zayn." Niall crosses his arms. "We live in Beverly Hills. It’s not like we’re scrubs"

Zayn makes a stern face at Niall. "Where are you headed after this?"

There's a long thought about this. "UCLA. Princeton. Yale." Only the best.

"Aw, no Harvard?" Zayn pouts his lips right at Niall's face. 

Niall rolls his eyes, turning away from Zayn. Now he can't even look at him without contempt. "No."

"Expensive of you altogether." Zayn laughs. "$6,000 is a heavy price to pay if you plan to go to those schools."

He starts to shake his head, kicking sand off his foot. "You're coercing me to go on this thing with you?" 

"We're hanging out."

Niall turns back to Zayn, sucking the gums of his cheeks as he narrows his eyes. "I'm starting to realize there's a reason why you have no friends."

"They're all in college." Zayn shrugs. "Second years. University of Miami, Harvard, NYU."

"So your summer escapade last year was to see them? I thought you ran away or something." Niall exales. Whoever made up that rumour about Zayn going to visit his grandma is going to get skewered by Niall if he cared enough.

"I don’t know what you’re hearing around at school or what people are saying about me. I don't care either. I just want you to come with me." A frown is nothing Niall wanted to see from Zayn.

"You can't talk to me like this and expect me to forget everything." Niall swallows the lump in his throat. "I have to work. Get your dog out of here."

"His name is Tino." Zayn mutters. 

In two minutes, Niall's able to turn around without seeing anybody.

At the same time as always, Niall is finished—no sunburns this time. His sunscreen routine happened to go very well today even when there was an uninvited presence that cut into his sixth hour of his sunscreen routine.

And all of then sudden, there's a fire inside Niall that makes him just as red as his uniform. What's worse than anger or madness? Niall's looking for words that prove to be more sinister, more soulless, something for him to use? But there isn't a word out there to express his anger towards the slashed tires of his car. 

There's not enough blood inside of him to affect his blood pressure because at this moment, the pocketknife in Zayn's hands while he sat by his own car made perfect sense.

"Need a ride?" Zayn grins. He closes the blades. Instead of a switchblade, he has keys in his hand.

"Apparently." Niall hisses. 

He's the shit who's giving him a ride home. He's also the one who helped him build this car from the tin that it was in the junkyard. Zayn's done many good things for Niall but he's definitely a shitty person at this moment. 

Why is he making such a big deal out of this anyway? At this time, Niall hasn't even given the love notes any thought whatsoever. They're nothing to him now. They never were to begin with. Zayn made that pretty clear to him. Now his vision is blurry and he can't see anything vivid with Zayn just making a desert storm for him to get lost in. 

This time, it's just a storm. One with lightning, thunder, and pouring rain. That's a first in L.A. after so many weeks. He's happy about thunderstorms. Nobody likes rain but he does, and being with Zayn on a night beautiful night like this makes him hate rain.

Niall's got his arms wrapped around himself tightly, leaning against the window. Niall knows Zayn's still mad at him for the two weeks he spent ignoring him. There's not much he can say.

Niall went about his days thinking about this so-called outing he and Zayn are supposed to have. Everywhere he went—from the living room to watch Daria; he thought of him and the cynical, yet quirky things he would say to be funny. The date was often an idea that came up a lot everywhere, distracted him from reality, and he really didn't want that to happen from the beginning. He has work, he has a life at home, and he can't spend all that time on stupid dates he won't admit to himself he's afraid of going on.

Even when he was given the opportunity to teach the Ultra 1 swimming class in a confined area on the beach, he had the idea come up where he'd teach Zayn how to swim the basics before he stopped thinking stupid things, and rushed to help this little boy blow bubbles without swallowing the disgusting salt water.

He reached three days where it was clearly something too good to be true that he had potentially ruined the opportunity to be friends again. It wasn't okay, but maybe that's something he should accept.

Or denial can live up to its name and deny that sort of conclusion between them because Zayn doesn't let what he appreciates go so easily. To know that and for Zayn to be at his door in the night of a Friday makes him burgeon with contentment. It doesn't excuse the embarrassment he still feels seeing Zayn.

"I didn't think you'd answer the door. I really thought your sister or housekeeper was gonna tell me you weren't home." Zayn tells him timidly.

Niall shrugs, not knowing what else he can do other than think to himself how late it is. "What's up?" 

"Movie, remember? We made a deal."

"I really thought you'd forget." Niall looks behind him. "Besides, it's late. The movie must've already started half an hour ago."

“No. We’ll make it in there in time.” Zayn grinning confidently, something Niall hasn’t seen from him. “Come on.”

“I don’t know if I can go anyway.” Niall looks away. “My parents don’t like it when I ask for permission on the day of.”

It’s a bad habit he continues to keep doing that his dad thinks it’s an issue to keep raising whenever he asks permission three days before, thinking three days isn’t sufficient for him to know the details. A week would help his dad out and it won’t be enough to let Niall stay an hour past his curfew. Typical dad. As for his mom, it would be typical of her to agree as soon as he asks—she’s way more lenient than his dad.

This one time, all he wanted was for someone to come by and tell Zayn that Niall isn’t allowed to leave, do what he can’t find himself to do. It’s like his dad knows when to come around and finally help him out.

“Hey, what are you—hi Zayn.” His dad comes behind Niall, offering sincere smile to his neighbour—someone his family has never genuinely spoken to before.

Giving him nod, Zayn greets him. “Hi Mr. Horan. We’re just going to a movie.”

Niall is starting to smirk inside. This would be his one chance to get out without pulling some shitty excuse out of his ass because his dad will do it for him.

He clasps Niall’s shoulder before walking away. “Alright. Enjoy.”

“Um.” Niall glares off to the side, glowering to himself. The one time his dad could have had his back, he doesn’t.

Zayn shoves him inside his house until both his feet are in Niall’s foyer. “I'll wait for you here.”

“I—” Niall chokes up on himself. Why was Zayn so adamant about this more than him? 

“What is it?” 

“I said fine.”

Niall wasn't going to plan what to wear—he doesn’t consider this a real date. He already has a shirt in mind anyway. He pulls his shirt from his hanger, letting the piece of plastic fall and clatter on the floor. Ignoring it, he quickly pulls his gym shirt over his head and throws a new white t-shirt over his chest, putting on his black jeans before his denim jacket. He leaves his room and the first thing he notices is Zayn pacing by the door. Accidentally, he let eye contact happen, showing Zayn a smile before he caught himself and scowled at him and made his way down.

“Okay.” Niall huffs as he comes down, straightening his jacket. “What kind of date is this?”

“So it is a date.” Zayn smiles at him. Then he begins to fidget nervously. “You look great, by the way.”

“No.” Niall snaps defensively, but he can’t hide the red tint of his cheeks. “It's just the two of us chilling.”

“I thought you'd consider this a date.” Zayn's tone is dubious. 

“Friends don't go on dates.” Boys shouldn’t go on dates either—at least that’s what people who don’t understand him would say. Not only isn’t it right to anybody, he has no clue whoever Zayn really is and why he would be doing something like this.

“Then I guess we aren't friends.”

“Whatever.” Niall decides he can’t waste any more time. He pushes past the door, only to be stopped by Zayn, gripping both his shoulders with a knit between his eyebrows.

“I'm sorry if you're still—”

Ashamed? Humiliated? Dumbfound even after two weeks? “I'm fine.”

They took Zayn’s car to the movies, despite knowing that was what he’s always wanted to do with his own car since spring started. Even if he bought the car just to go around the city without having to borrow his dad's car, he understood through his annoyance of recognizing that Zayn taking him out to the movies with his car would mean he doesn’t care at all. And he doesn’t. It’s just a stupid date.

Instead of popcorn and candy, Zayn got him In-N-Out instead before the movie began which put him in a hard place. He can't look at him the same without feeling bad for himself and being ashamed to face him. He just tries to hide it through his anger and his ability to ignore well.

They ate quietly, watched the movie without commentary even though they got there ten minutes before American Pie actually began. This is all before he could even tell himself that he's making a lot of mistakes being in this car. He'd rather have Zayn hate him than mad at him. Childish and immature of him, yes he knows.

But they were fine. They were into the movie and its very sexual references that had Zayn grimacing weakly to himself.

As much as Niall's pretending it's all over, he doesn't want it to be. He's still looking forward to the days he can be hugged longer than the word seconds, and talk to him without restrictions. Right now, everything they're involved with, feels like it's constrained. 

“Here's to two weeks of the silent treatment.” Out of nowhere, Zayn bumps their drinks together and Niall's frowning. “You ignore me for two whole weeks, leaving me to wonder what's wrong with me.” Zayn scoffs. Here come's hell and it's brutally honest. “That's why I liked being alone.”

“It's really not like that.” Niall mumbles. “I'm watching what’s left of this movie. You should too.”

He knew the discussion was going to happen eventually. However, it wasn't something he wants to talk about now that he's here in the drive-in. Zayn told him this can be a date he can tell his friends, and if this discussion were to happen, then what is he supposed to tell them? Hey, Zayn knows I like him. What else is there to say? Oh, he's mad at me but I can't be mad at him.

He'll be in big trouble coming home late. He never realized three hours had passed. The window wasn't an option and that meant the only way to get in was by the back door. His dad would kill him if he went home so late, and his dad would surely bring him to hell's door if he found out the boy he was out with someone he doesn’t see just as a friend. It was scary to think about everyone knowing who he really was—being deemed abnormal, being seen a different person even if they've known him for years. His mom says it's okay to like anybody he wants, but it could never _just_ be okay.

Once Zayn parked under his roofed parking spot in his driveway attached right beside the house, Niall doesn't move or say anything. Zayn knew this night already wasn't going to go so well from the silence between the two of them. “You alright?” He asked anyway.

“Yeah. Thanks for tonight.” Niall unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Something else is bothering you.” He wasn't accepting his thank-you just yet. 

“Why were you so determined to take me to this drive-in?” Niall huffs.

Quietly, Zayn replies. “Harry mentioned it to me and—”

“Just 'cause I wanted to go, doesn't mean you were the one that should've taken me... It's not like you had to. I-I'm not gay or whatever.” Niall starts to stare at the door handle. He should leave right now. He said too much already.

“What's wrong with you?” Zayn scowls at the stick shift between them. He couldn't find anything to focus on. Once he found himself glaring at Niall, he wasn’t even looking back at Zayn.

“It's nothing.” Niall rests his arm by the door instead. 

It was a fine time to finally discuss their problems—even if Niall had barely anything to say. Although, he has so much to say, he doesn't know what should come out of his mouth to fix everything. Numb in his seat, Niall was staring at the dashboard without being sensible at all.

“From here, it looks like I spent months finally getting to know my neighbour so I can have at least one friend who isn't my cousin.” Zayn wipes his nose just before he holds the bottom part of the wheel with two of his fingers, aimlessly staring at his hand.

“From what I hear, you have lots.” Scoffing, Niall grips his thighs.

“I _had_ lots.” Zayn mutters. “And I had lots because I moved twice before I came here. First New York, then Vermont.”

“Never met anyone who lived in Vermont.” Niall looked down at his hand before the dashboard again.

“My friends don't miss me.” That explains how his escapade went last summer. “They've got new things to look forward to, told me it's time I do something else besides linger in the past.”

“Shit friends.”

“No better than the ones here.” Zayn mutters with so much vindictiveness.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Zayn shrugs, slowly blinking at the middle of the steering wheel. “What do you want me to say now? What do you wanna hear from me so I'm not some stupid mistake that you made?”

“Why Harry?”

“I just liked him for being himself. He was in my writing class, wrote pretty good poetry for someone who claimed they didn't care about writing class.”

He went on about how charming he is, how solid of a man he is not to care about what people think of him, that it's usually confidence that carries every reason why a person would be so attracted to them. If anything, it just sounded like everything Niall wasn't and he was fine with that—if he wants to lie to himself.

He opens his door and shuts it quickly enough for everything to fall under the same second. Someone might've heard it, maybe not. Doesn't seem like Zayn's worried about it, proceeding to slam his door shut afterwards and neither should he be worried. Niall doesn't walk towards the gate towards freedom but he can see it. He just imagines himself walking through and ending this conversation seeing how he keeps messing up what Zayn's trying to fix—there is no point in continuing. 

“You asked me!” Zayn hisses in hostile frustration, pointing at himself.

“I know. It's my fault.” Niall whispers back to him, shrugging as he starts to walk back and forth.

“You can hate me for putting those notes in your locker.” Zayn hisses some more. “But you can't hate me because you fell for them, because you're not trying to hear what you want to hear even when I asked you, what should I say?”

“Do you like him more than as a friend? I-If liking boys was something you... Do.” Niall asks lowly; the two of them can hear the crickets chirping between the stillness. The cars driving from the distance seem so much louder. 

Zayn blows out a deep breath, somehow stopping Niall from pacing to having him stand still beside Zayn at the front of the car.

"Yeah, it is possible; but I like someone else more than as a friend.” He shrugs. Then he takes a deep breath in. “I'm not sure if they like me back.”

“When did you start liking them?” Niall gently sucks on the gums of his bottom lip, staring at Zayn's eyelashes as he continuously looks down, not meeting Niall's eyes.

“When he called me for the first time.” Niall's chest practically caved in an instant. There's a faint smile from the corner of his lip trying not to get any wider. “Said I was like his mom because I was just like her, trying to change the world.”

Zayn still couldn’t look at him afterwards—instead, he watches his thumbs rub one against the other. It was one of those moments again where everything surrounding the silence became louder—the crickets, the cars, the dogs barking in the distance. Niall blinks a few times until he can duck low just enough to push his lips over the soft pair of lips that didn't expect it at all. He's remembering Zayn's inked skin of the leaf with the bird at the end, wondering how weird if it all came to life. His fingers tuck under his hair; his fingers easily pressing and running against his skin, and Niall's trying not to think anything obscene at the moment. No reaction, but somehow, he's holding the side of Zayn's thigh with his other hand.

He slowly pulls away; their lips sticking together just long enough before Niall can feel them peel apart. He's left less than an inch between their lips, letting the tips of their noses brush together. Carefully Zayn starts to stand up straight against the car, without letting Niall move even a hair away from him by holding his waist, timid hands too scared to press and harder than his feather touch.

“He likes you too.” Niall mutters so quietly his lips barely move at the pronunciation of the word. Zayn grins only last half a second while Niall's having an all-out battle with himself—resisting from letting his cheeks turn red and smile.

He can feel Zayn slowly parting his lips open; they're skimming against one another but not pushing. He looks like he's laughing and smiling, though there's no noise. And if he just waits with his head angled slightly to his left, the tip of his nose brushing on Zayn's, he'll lose his mind waiting because he's so close, he can taste him.

At last, it closed back and Niall feels like he's melting altogether, relaxing against Zayn. Niall's properly got his lips fit in between the fuller ones, pressing softly, gripping his fist in Zayn's hair. He's nice about how tight he has his fist in his hair—nothing painful. Niall tilts his head to a new angle and push his lips right back on Zayn—a firm and tender press over that's clouding Niall's mind to keep it going and going, even if the thunder is rolling in his chest. 

He can hear the quiet noises between their lips, and it disgusts him so much but everything is making him happy so he doesn't stop at the fact Zayn's lips are always breaking the seams of Niall, and that there's always a wet tinge off their lips. The way Zayn kisses is soft yet firm enough just to rile something up in Niall to comb through Zayn's hair until its dishevelled. It's quick to end and Niall just laughs at the way Zayn tries to pull him closer but its awkward on his knees so he turns himself and sits on the spot between Zayn's thighs, accepting the very tight grip Zayn's arms has around him.

It feels like a secret and in reality, it was. Zayn could be in bed by now instead of hiding from people who are sleeping without even a speculation that he's outside with someone he likes—a boy who just happens to be sitting between his legs. His family doesn't know anything about him—it's not going to be any time soon that they figure it out.

“Are you just going to keep holding me like this or are you gonna let me go home and face my punishment?” Niall whispers lowly, turning his head enough so Zayn could hear him.

“First one.” He answers right into his ear. Then Zayn presses his lips so nicely behind his ear, right at the curve of his jaw. “All night.”

“Aren't we going too fast?” Niall exhales shakily while Zayn continues around the same spot. It's wet just right on his skin; even something simple like his lips being so very soft and plump on his neck is making his breath hitch softly. 

“You're just sleeping-over.” Zayn's laugh starts to tinge Niall's skin. “You can tell your parents that's why you didn't come home. You just slept over. They wouldn't mind right?”

Niall leans off of Zayn to only turn himself around and look at Zayn, holding his face with both his hands, his thumb tilting his chin up. He can't stop grinning at him. “Okay.” He pressed his lips in between, trying not to think about how Zayn already had a plan to get him from getting in trouble.

But that wasn't the case since his dad gave him chores to do for not telling him and being silent about this sleepover he went on—even out in the rain where his dad gave him the most ridiculous chore: clean the pool. His jacket couldn't even help him from keeping dry and he eventually slipped in and fried his Walkman.

Shortly after a few days since it rained, Niall has been locked up in his room, excused from lifeguard duty to recover from a flu. Despite his love for the rain, he didn't want to be backstabbed like this—red nose, clogged to the extent that he can't breathe, and sneezing into a tissue every 3 minutes or so.

He didn't think he would've gotten this bad when he only stayed out for 20 minutes. There are certain people in this world who treat it like a shower—like the weird neighbours who live right across from them. They wear their bathing suits and run around their yard.

At least there's someone he can look forward to after he gets out from quarantine. That'll take another couple of days. For now, he's busy playing Metal Slug on a Gameboy. It's Zayn's—if Niall's parents don’t want to spend a dime on a car, they wouldn't spend a dime on video game consoles for him but they will buy a yacht. Oh, he lives a boring life.

But he's happy.

“Niall! Phone call for you.” He hears his mom from the hallway.

He's got the cordless phone tucked somewhere in his duvet so his left hand is patting the bed down while his right hand is holding the Gameboy. 

“Hell—” Niall pulls the phone to his ear. “Oh no, I died.”

“Hey Niall.” Greets Zayn.

Niall drops the Gameboy on his lap, putting all his attention towards this phone call. It's a better choice.

“Hi Zayn!” Yikes... Too eager. 

“How're you feeling?” His voice is so soft and caring. Niall wants to just run outside and kiss him, if he wasn't stuck inside because of a cold.

“Getting better.” Niall grins to himself. “Kind of, miss you...”

“You're so sick.” Zayn laughs. “But I miss you too.”

“If I get out my tower, what do you wanna do?”

“Run off to the sunset with my trusty steed.”

“You can't ride Tino.”

“But he is very trustworthy. Kept my secret to himself.”

“Which one?”

“That I'm... Gay.”

“Ohhh.” It kind of hurts Niall to think they should keep themselves a secret. Really, what can he do?

“What about you? Anyone else know about you?”

Niall hums. “I've got a small circle who knows I'm an in-betweener.”

“What the hell is that?” Zayn laughs.

“It's when somebody likes girls, and boys.” Niall bites his bottom lip.

“What?” Zayn huffs.

“It's real.” Niall frowns.

“Niall, I know they're real.” Zayn says his name calm and firm. “But the term is bisexual. You're bisexual, not an in-betweener.”

“Oh.” Niall mutters, then he starts to laugh.

“You're funny.” Zayn says behind a soft hint of laughter as well. A sneeze breaks out and Zayn can hear Niall sniffing. “You get better.” 

“Thanks.” He says relaxed and calm. “We'll hang out soon. With your video game, Walkman, and tape, recovery is flying by.” Just when Niall says so, he drops the phone to blow his nose.

“I'm not getting my mix-tape back, am I?”

“It's really good. I've been listening to it for hours.”

“It's okay. Glad to know you like it.” There's some shuffling in the background. “I did plan to give it to you.”

“Thank you. Liking you more by the second.”

“Alright.” Zayn reclaims in annoyance. “I'm gonna hang up. Parents are abroad for the month and I'm on every freaking cleaning duty they've listed down.”

“Okay.” Niall laughs. “See ya.”

“Bye.”

But Niall keeps the phone pressed to his ear so he could hear the click of Zayn's phone. It's already happened before, and it's going to keep happening if Niall isn't so high up in the clouds for Zayn. He'd hang up if he really didn't want to keep it going.

“Zayn, hang up.” Niall pushes his words out.

“It'd be easy if you weren't on the other end.” He answers truthfully.

“You want me to hang up?” Niall bites his lip with his fingers close to his lips.

“I'll hang up!” Daughn shouts from another end.

“Oh shit.” Zayn laughs. “I'll see you later.”

This time, he really hangs up, and Niall's groaning at Daughn who's at his door making kissy noises. He's tucking himself deep into his blanket, throwing his headphones back on, wishing she'll be gone by the time he needs to breathe air and not suffocate in his blankets.

* * *

Their first real date is with Harry and this girl in his History class who he asked out. Her name is Suki, one of the school's cheerleaders. They had dinner together (she wasn't thrilled about Harry's 'friends' tagging along) and then went to this rave. It was a legitimate rave. Niall ignored the rumours of cocaine being used in the washroom but all was well. Zayn doesn't do any type of dancing until someone gets him high enough—a fun fact.

And then at the end, Niall shouldn't be as happy as he is but Suki had to get home quite early so it meant Harry had to go too. Her ride is Harry, and Niall's ride is Zayn. And Zayn is his own ride. 

Just between them two, they're spending their night in the record store where Parker's working a late shift so they're hanging out with him until he's finished cleaning and stocking up.

“Hey,” Niall turns to Zayn who's busy looking at Michael Jackson vinyl. “You're really into music.” He sounds like he's had an epiphany.

“It's revolutionary.” Zayn tucks the vinyl back in before turning to Niall where they're looking at each other and trying not to smile as big as they should.

Not to even sound like he's being super deep, music is really revolutionary. Even if the parents don't approve of the rock, punk, grunge, and the sexual sounds of R&B, it affects the adolescent media whether or not it's positive.

“Wanna help me make a tape?” Niall asks. “Usually, I just get tapes but maybe I should make my own. Or, should I make a CD... Those things are in now, right?”

“I like tapes.” Zayn shrugs. “All the effort put into it is great.”

“You'll help me then?” Niall puts a hand on Zayn's jaw, thumb pressing near his cheekbone.

“It'll be fun, yeah.” He laughs quietly, closing the space between their lips. Long contact, but very few kisses between to last them until tomorrow.

Parker comes out from the back and quickly, the two boys pull away, leaving a gap between. “Hey, got a box of cassettes here that the company accidentally shipped to us.” Parker pulls it up from the counter and Zayn looks to him. “But shhh. Don't tell them that.”

“We won't.” Zayn smiles at him. “Niall will probably go through about 10 of them.”

“Oh, lil' bro-in-law. It's quite easy, actually.” States Parker when Zayn starts to laugh.

“We're technically not brothers-in-law yet.” Niall retorts with a smirk.

“Wanna see the ring I got her?” Without giving an answer, Parker opens it anyway. Zayn and Niall are about a few feet away. For them to see it reflecting the light above Parker to where they are is quite something to talk about.

“Hey! That's huge.” Niall gasps, narrowing his eyes. All he can see is the giant rock and the tiny ones along the band.

“Gotta make your sister happy.” Parker smiles but it's for himself—being so proud of the ring he's got his girlfriend.

“She's very happy already.” Niall means it.

“But your dad doesn't like me.” Parker frowns right after and he closes the ring up before putting it in his pocket. “What did I do?”

“It's the leather and motorcycle.” Zayn shrugs.

“It looks cool.”

“Hey, at least you don't have tattoos.” Niall elbows Zayn.

And there's a loud gasp from Parker. “Zayn, you have tattoos?” 

He nods for his answer. “Got some covered.”

“Oh, I could never get one. Needles hurt me.” Parker rubs his arm.

“Zayn plays this good guy persona who looks like they haven't done anything. It's very convincing. Even I have been fooled.” 

“I am a good guy.” Parker frowns even more. “I love Daughn. I'd never let anything happen to her.”

“If you love her, their dad's view of you shouldn't stop you.”

“Insightful of lil' brother's friend.”

“I try.” Zayn smiles.

* * *

Now Niall can see how annoying it is to be making a mix-tape. As if an hour is long enough, Niall screwed up by leaving a 1 minute gap between _Kiss Me_ and _As Long As You Love Me_.

Turning the chair around, he holds his hand out. “Here.” Niall closes the cassette's box and hands it to Zayn. With a big grin on his face, he's quite proud of it. “First one goes to you.”

“Thanks.” Zayn smells the scent of the markers that Niall drew with on the cassette. Blueberry. “It's like a piece of you.”

“Except, I'm not plastic.” Niall sits beside Zayn on his bed.

“I didn't say anything about you being plastic.” Zayn laughs when he puts the mix-tape on the end of the bed, only to turn right back around and have his hand on Niall's face when they lean in together, breaking the seams of their lips. 

Niall can't get a break, and maybe he doesn't want one when Zayn kisses him real damn good. He can feel his heart pounding through his chest when he finds himself exhaling in between the tight space between their mouth and when they're pushing back. Zayn's parents aren't coming back until the end of August, and Waliyha is off to summer camp so the only person here would be Zayn—who's sucking his bottom lip, pulling back, and then skimming his tongue over. 

They're going as slow as they can, making each kiss last with a break that lasts them a second before Zayn's pushing back hard with his tongue in Niall's mouth and Niall's moaning from his throat.

“Niall,” Zayn pulls apart an inch, still holding his face. “I've never had sex before. I think we should slow down.”

“I haven't either.” Niall swallows, presses a kiss on the corner of Zayn's lips. “It's alright.” That's the truth anyway. People think too much with their genitals, and not enough of others. It was very weird to be amongst his friends who all lost their virginity. 

“We can, kiss under the blanket then cuddle afterwards.” Zayn shrugs with his suggestion. That's sure going slow.

“What do you want?” Niall lifts a brow.

“Kiss under the blanket then cuddle afterwards.” He repeats with a laugh.

“My afternoon is pretty clear.” Niall laughs when he crawls to the side of where he's pressed against the wall. He leaves enough space for Zayn to be on his side—not much you can ask from a single twin bed. “If I fall asleep, try not to wake me.”

“It's pretty lonely without anyone here.” Zayn joins Niall on the other side, facing one another.

And there's an idea. “You wanna come over for dinner?” Niall puts his arm over the dip of Zayn's waist.

“Am I allowed?”

“My mom cooks too much anyway. Besides,” Niall squeezes his arm more around Zayn and closes the space between them by scooting forward. “She was always supposed to invite your family over from last year but she never had the time.”

“Alright, I'll come over.” Zayn grins before he turns Niall flat on his back with his leg slotted between the two of his and his hip pinned against Niall's hip as well.

Faster this time, Niall can already feel Zayn's tongue flicking against his bottom lip, louder noises and the faster occurrence of them. Heads turning an eager left and right, Niall's trying to catch his breath again with his hands running down Zayn's spine. He remembers the tattoo, and presses his palm down. Even though their noses are pressed awkwardly against each other, Niall's trying push back against Zayn. But he's hard to nudge, so they're both caught in between the middle but Niall slightly ducks down to kiss his chin and along his jaw.

“Am I allowed to kiss you on your neck?” Niall exhales into the crook, his mouth getting restless.

“Yeah, please.” Zayn croaks between the two words, and Niall immediately presses his mouth down, and pulls back with a kiss before he can find different spots. 

Right at the curve of his jaw, his tongue pokes out and he closes with his lips kissing him. Then he drags his lips down, closing over a new spot each time where Zayn's able to hear the soft sound of his lips and feel the wet tinge of them. 

“You like this?” Niall whispers.

“Y-yeah?” Zayn exhales. There's a subtle laugh in his voice. 

Niall grins into Zayn's neck, leaves a tight kiss with his mouth and turns back to kissing Zayn on his lips. He's missed those.

Niall looks up at Zayn, watching his brown eyes look back at him so fondly. “Wanted to kiss you for a long time now.” Niall whispers, then he grins before he can tilt his head and do what he's always wanting to do.

“I always thought of it too.” Zayn smiles, pressing a quick kiss on Niall's top lip before resting his head on Niall's collarbone.

“Is this the cuddle part?” Niall rubs Zayn's lower back with the arm around his waist.

“Yup.” Zayn sighs tightly, snuggling onto Niall more.

Zayn's insanely warm even if he's wearing a crew neck pullover and a new pair of sweats cuffed at his ankle. He smells great too—reminds him of a mixture of orange and ginger. Just something organically lame but fresh at the same time. 

Zayn falls asleep quick, body slowly heaving as he takes a breath with seconds in between. Niall wants to watch, seeing the pout in his lips and his long lashes curl, but even then, fatigue isn't something he can run away from. And he doesn't want to run away from this.

* * *

Sitting at dinner didn't feel so awkward at all when prior the sit down, all Zayn did was help Niall's mom out with prepping the table while Niall got scolded by him for being so inconsiderate. Niall grew up getting things on his own. It's only different now that Zayn's the one who brought up if Niall's mother needed help setting the table. Their family never ate together. So Zayn never started without having a conversation with them before dinner, and conversations carried through from the kitchen to the table.

Luckily, not much was on the table because it was spaghetti. All there was is garlic bread. Or was it Muffins? Super soft bread muffins? He's not sure. And Parker being there too, he had eaten three and no one has even finished theirs yet. He must be anxious—he has every reason to be.

“Niall, you're such an annoying kid.” Daughn huffs. “Can't you eat spaghetti normally?”

Niall looks up, spaghetti sauce at the corner of his mouth. He chews with his mouth open—letting the mood smack around in his mouth.  ”Wah, wah, wah! And I'm only two years younger than you. Brat.”

“Chill out, dude.” Parker holds out his palm to Niall. “Respect women.”

“I'll respect her when she stops being a brat.”

“Don't be like that, Niall.” Zayn grimaces at him. “I grew up with three sisters.”

“Sorry.” Niall bites his lip. “You have more than one sister?”

Zayn nods with his mouth full. He waits until he's finished eating to say, “Two are in college.”

“Since you're home alone this week, you can stay around as long as you'd like. If you want.” Niall's dad smiles at him.

Niall lifts a brow inconspicuously while Zayn's focus is on the end of the table. “I'll take the invite. Sure. Thank you.” He smiles sheepishly. 

“Oh, you'd like that. No kidding, Niall.” Daughn snorts.

“Go eat a bread.” Niall shakes his head.

“Maybe I will.”

Daughn grabbing another slice of garlic bread isn't all that exciting to anybody until she finds the one they ended up sticking an engagement ring inside of it and she's gasping and everyone's looking at Parker standing on his knees. And Niall's looking at his dad, hoping he doesn't pop a vein after this. He looks way more surprised that Daughn. Then there's their mom who's quite excited with Daughn.

“Daughn, time is endless when I'm with you. The moment I saw you working in the movie theatre, it took me two weeks to grow the courage to ask you out. Then I was the stupid one who took you to the movie theatre you work at to watch a movie and I didn't think you'd ever want to see me again.” He continues to hold Daughn's hand while she's in a constant state of holding her tongue back. “But you are something else because you called two days after. You make me laugh, you make me smile, I learn lots of new things because of you. You're always there for me and so, I propose to you so that it could be my turn to be here for you and be the one you look to in times of trouble.”

“Jesus, this is technically the vow.” Niall whispers to himself. He gets a smack from Zayn who must've overheard him.

“Oops. I forgot.” Parker shakes his head. “Will you marry me?”

Niall looks to his dad again who must be repeating no in his head to be getting veins on his neck. Daughn starts to cry which is probably the first ever with her since she was 8. She nods as Parker slips the ring in her finger before they're sharing a hug at the dining table. Niall's not sure whether to keep quiet or clap, but Zayn's clapping quietly so he does too.

“So when's the wedding?” Their mom asks.

“Wedding!” Their dad grits to himself.

“I-I don't know!” Daughn gushes. “I'm just so happy right now.”

She should be. That rock is big for somebody who works at a record store. Parker must've worked day and night for it. Well, for someone who owns a motorcycle, no shit.

Zayn and Niall go up to Niall's room—a very bleak room compared to Zayn's. They sit on the couch, careful that their parents don't walk in on them so they wait a while with the T.V. on with the volume high enough for people to know that television is only happening in his room. Not like Niall's got his fingers along Zayn's jaw who's seated at the side of the couch with the arm rest, making himself comfortable while Niall sucks on his ear lobe and then presses a wet kiss just below, continuing to move down his neck. Actually—he does.

“There is nothing on that's worth watching.” Zayn sighs then he turns his head to Niall, smirking. “You're so damn touchy.”

“It happens.” Niall smiles against Zayn's smirk, then their lips press between the seams, long enough that his fingers left an imprint on Zayn's jaw.

Zayn takes his hand, holding it between them. “Wanna go on a date tomorrow? After your shift?”

“What do you have in mind?” Niall bites his lip down, eyes twinkling at Zayn's question.

“Pacific Pier?” Zayn asks unsure.

“Yes! That's awesome. I can win you a really big bear to remind you of me.” Niall laughs into Zayn's shoulder, seeing his tattoo's peek from his shirt.

“It's not like I'm going to forget about you.” He puts a stroking hand on Niall's shoulder arm until he's tracing down his forearm with his fingertips. “You live next door.”

A smile starts to form between his lips—not because living next door beside Zayn is a golden gift. It's the way he's allowed to put his head on his shoulder, kiss him as much as he likes, even though that's something they really shouldn't do so loosely. He can do things Cristina would never do, or say things that make his stomach bubble up in a good way or make the fireworks blow off every time Zayn's around.

“When did you start liking me?” Zayn asks, provoking Niall to sit back from him.

“Why do you get to ask that?” Niall pouts.

“I want to know.” He laughs quietly after—he must've had a thought. “I'll kiss you depending how long your answer is.”

Surprisingly, he'll compromise. “Okay.” Once his smile is making an appearance again, he looks down. “It was—my parents' anniversary, and we went down to the arcade. You introduced me to this game—”

“Zombroids.” Zayn laughs. Niall can't believe they both liked each other at the same time.

“That one.” Niall nods. “And then we laughed at my sister and her boyfriend rollerskating together and then we had the giant Bigfoot pizza which you devoured.”

“I had four slices.” Zayn makes sure of that when Niall had a total Zayn couldn't even count that night. New piece in his hand every time he looked at him—wasn't sure if it was the same piece or a new one. 

“And then I killed you in air hockey, and we played ski ball and hoop shots until we got the boat.”

“Which is now stuck between the rocks.” Zayn holds Niall's face. With his cheeks so red under his palm, he barely pressed his hand. Feels too delicate. 

His kisses are soft and sweet, not forceful or aggressive. Lips on lips, Niall can feel Zayn's timid tongue licking between. It's quiet, and it feels as if every kiss is gonna lead to many mornings and that's something Niall's ever had before. But he could taste it for the first time in this feather light kiss. 

And everything suddenly seems silent but the gentle sounds their lips make. He's very comfortable and deep to let his eyes stay shut as he takes the shy pokes of Zayn's tongue between his parted lips. It feels so innocent, look so innocent, but there are guilty thoughts in Niall's mind when he wraps his arms around Zayn's neck, tilting his head so their mouths could meet the right way.

“Time's up.” Zayn whispers, fighting the smile he's trying to hide between their kisses. He loses, but then again, for Niall to kiss him over his smile makes him feel like the real winner.

“Oh, come on.” Niall groans with laughter mixed together. Zayn tries to push him away, but even his own strength fails him when they're touching foreheads, nudging noses and smiling into each other's teeth.

“Tino's waiting for me at home.” Zayn pushes his forehead against Niall's like it's a wrestling match. “And I don't like the way you called him a dog at the beach. He has a name.”

“His name is Tino, he's blind, and you care about him more than anything.” Niall pushed his lips back on Zayn's. This time, he pressed hard. “I'll see you tomorrow at shack 3.”

“I found you before.” He starts to move off the couch—his hand holding Niall's as he gets up. “You're the only one who looks good wearing the uniform head to toe, anyway.”

“Just doing my job.” Niall stands up right behind him, walking him out the door.

His house still smells like garlic bread which isn't at all bad. It makes him hungry again, just for garlic bread. And it wasn't just some bread—it was the softest kind of bread that made Niall think they were made with flour and the texture of clouds. So soft, Parker could stick a ring in between without thinking about the garlic and butter taste and slicked around the ring. 

They're probably having sex in Daughn's room which is gross to even think about when her room is across the hall. He shakes it out of his head, leading Zayn downstairs to their foyer.

He held Zayn's hand by its fingertips; keeping it between them close by without wandering eyes noticing details. Like his dad, in the dining room finishing off some work. 

“Hey, Zayn. Where are you goin'?” Niall's dad asks. It's so sudden, Niall threw Zayn's arm back to him.

“To see if my house isn't burned down.” Zayn laughs awkwardly. “I also realized that I left my dog Tino home alone.”

“Come by for breakfast, his mother makes a mean waffle.”

Zayn nods, forcing a smile. He's thankful, but it's awkward knowing he kissed his son and his dad doesn't even know what's going on. Or if he even supports it. “I'll be over for mean waffles.”

And he gives one subtle smirk towards Niall before he says goodbye.

* * *

Shack 3 needs more entertainment provide for him. There's nothing but a radio, walkie-talkie, some first aid kits and supplies, and equipment. the 

It's already been an exhausting day—at least a T.V. and magazines would be good. The heat in L.A. is blazing hot today—especially the beaches. He's been sweating through his uniform tank-top and he's been contemplating on taking his shirt off. There are so many positive outcomes from having it off, like cooling his skin off with the near non-existent breeze that adds to the heat and getting an even tan. There's also a higher chance of getting sunburn but it doesn't matter at this point. Lifeguards aren't supposed to be in the water but since it's so humid, they're allowed to take a quick dip in water and come back to their station. 

He's refilled his water bottle eight times already, wondering if anybody should really be out today with it being so hot. But he guesses that permits a beach day. Days like these increases the chances of drowning with the amount of people on the beach. 

And just like that, there goes the whistle from the first lifeguard chair between shack 4 and 3. The procedure goes like this: the rest of the lifeguards are up on their feet, pointing their arms to the direction of the drowning scene. Because Niall was at the shack, he just had to point as well—until the victim is on the beach and he would be there as a second hand with the defibrillator. The closest shack other than 3, would call 911. 

Even if it wasn't serious, like this crisis with the little girl who slipped off from her blow-up bed and into the water. The lifeguard had managed to bring her back in less than seven seconds to preform resuscitations. Though she didn't need it, they still need to be vigilant. 

Sometimes it's scary knowing someone's life is in his hands. Not even $500 a week could ever make up the loss of someone's life.

Despite working in a job that's supposed to keep his mind vigilant, all he could think about is his date with Zayn. He's super stoked about it and he's sure it got out somehow because Harry called him during his lunch hour that him and his date, Jade and her date, and Leigh and Jordan were going to be coming along. Maybe it was because of his big mouth that called Harry after Zayn left to tell him about their date. He's only hoping Zayn doesn't have a problem with it. 

This distraction led to him forgetting that all the lifeguard duties were done by six like it always has been. His hour of the shift left him to take a walk back and forth between shack 3 and the middle lifeguard seat. There's five seats in total between a shack, and the lifeguards on foot always walk to the one in the middle before they have to pace back to their shack. It's his daily routine, and he should've known he could leave at 6 so he could meet Zayn for their date.

There's a splash that would've made him shiver and shake, and totally mad. Just not today; he appreciates the refreshing splash on his back. If someone leaves a hand on his skin, their hand would burn.

It was Zayn, playing about like he always does. He laughs quietly, fingers soaked in water, face flushed because of the heat, tattoos visible because of his cut sleeves. He looks really cool, and everybody will and could think that. But Niall laughs at that idea—Zayn definitely isn't cool. In a good way. He's the coolest loser there is.

“Am I on set for Baywatch?” Zayn greets him, shaking his hand from excess water. 

“How was your day?” Niall turns to Zayn, walking backwards. If he trips over a kid, pray Zayn pulls him in before it happens.

“Harry is watching Tino.” Zayn sighs. Then he starts to hum. “Uh, breakfast was good—it was waffles with fresh strawberry fruit and syrup, and ice cream.”

“Mean waffles.” Niall lifts a brow. His mother makes waffles when she's in a good mood. Usually, waffles are made on weekends and not weekdays, but today is Friday. Close enough, right? “You were gonna fall asleep on our couch.”

“But I didn't.” Zayn assures with a grin. “I went to work with your mom. She was great. All the ladies love me. They called me Golden Boy.”

There weren't so many ladies in the office his mom works in. Niall could only really count 3 from the many men writing articles, not including secretaries. Niall met them all; they were really nice. They're always over once a month for lunch with his mother. One of them is Daughn's godmother as well.

Inside the shack, Niall's gathering his stuff, ignoring the idea of putting his shirt back on. He hangs it on the hook, throws his light windbreaker over his shoulder instead.

“I think it's the eyes.” Zayn taps the corner of his eyes. He's still on the idea of Heartbreaker? 

Niall twists the cap of his water bottle. “I don't think so.” And he knocks his water bottle back, taking sip after sip. He hasn't had a drink in half an hour.

“You wanna check?”

Niall pulls the bottle away, capping it closed. “I've checked.” 

“Not properly.” A grin on Zayn's face suggests a lot of things Niall should say no to. 

It's a yes instead, and he's looking into them like he hasn't seen this kind of sunset—the one that makes it seem like the world is ending and there's that last moment of peace before hell breaks loose.

Niall should shake that kind of image out. “Come on, we should go. Before someone catches us.” 

“Definitely nobody.” Holding his face while he's pressed against the wall, he's got Niall trapped in his fingertips. It makes it harder for temptations to be ignored.

They kiss for a very solid number of minutes—slowly with too many smiles in between that they're kissing each other's teeth at certain times. It's not something to complain about. Niall's got a pretty good idea of what Zayn likes, and he likes laughing between everything. Who says he's broody and emotionless?

Niall's back is moist from the heat and unexpected splash—though it doesn't necessarily stop Zayn from holding the small of his back and his face. It makes him wonder, if he ever stayed with Cristina for the summer, would this have happened? Would he had ever had good moments like these? It was casually fun. Even when it didn't look like it.

The tip of Zayn's tongue has its moments of tracing Niall's lips before Niall welcomes it in his mouth. And the first thing Zayn always meets is Niall's tongue and he'll always be eager to let his guard down, be weak for just a moment. No one has ever kissed like Zayn. Not one person can kiss like him. If this all never happened—Niall not confessing his crush on Zayn, Zayn not doing the same thing—Niall might just think Zayn's actually in love with him with the way they kiss him. He gives a lot of ideas with his lips pressing between Niall's, and nobody knows if anyone is on the same page. But Niall thinks he is, and kisses that make him imagine and wonder all sorts of things are dangerous. It could probably ruin his life.

“It's your lips.” Niall mutters.

“What about them?” Zayn closes his lips over Niall's pair before he can even answer.

Niall's hand goes over Zayn's cheek, then he caress a short strand of his curled hair between his fingers pressing through. “I don’t know. Nice?”

“Oh wow.” He laughs between the inch of space between their faces. 

Niall tries to take a step back, even with Zayn's arm around him. He's trying to avoid his husky laugh that's right against his mouth. This is something dangerous too. Now he's not sure if it's the kissing or the smile he has when he's laughing.

His back hits a surface, and some how Zayn's pressed right on him—closer than before. 

“We should go.” Niall starts to grin afterwards, eyes looking down towards what he's really focused on and he doesn't even know it. The grin turns to a smirk, and Zayn definitely knows what he's thinking. He's not hiding at what he's looking—not even trying at all. They've both got their heads tilted too.

“No.” A smile appears on Zayn's face before he presses the gentlest kiss between Niall's lip. Oh shit, it's definitely his lips. Just like that, there are no more smiles—just ideas that drives Niall to push his mouth over, hand pressed right into Zayn's hair. He's got his head angled beyond just right. He's got it angled for Zayn's mouth to match his growing lust. Zayn licks his tongue in Niall's mouth, hips digging into each other.

Their breathing is loud. As they pull apart with a smack between their lips, they suck a breath in before knocking their mouths back together. Heartbeat pacing fast, Niall's chest is heaving with his hips glued against Zayn's, his lower body leaning off the wall just for Zayn. His eyes shut as Zayn presses him back on the wall, and there's his tongue over his lips—a lick so tender, Niall's parting his mouth open, letting a soft breath escape. His heart is pounding through his chest, not sure if there's gonna be a date after all.

“Hello!” There's a knock on the door. Niall pulls Zayn harder against his mouth, in hopes that they would leave. Then a whole set of badgering knocks starts to happen. “It's Harry!” 

“Oh my god.” Zayn lets out a deep breath. His eyes blink open to Harry waving at the window on the door.

Niall pulls the door open for Harry who's wearing another one of his satin button downs from Louis Vuitton. Is that what he has to wear for a date at the Pier?

“Where's your date?” Niall shakes his head in confusion. 

“She's gonna be late.” Harry shrugs. 

“You're coming along?” Zayn quirks an eyebrow up. His eyes shift towards Niall.

“Yeah.” His head looks left and right, up and down while Niall watches him. “Nice place.”

“So, who's watching Tino?”

“My little cousin.” Harry nods, and his face lights up when he gives Zayn a good look. “Had fun, Zaynie? Don't worry; your secret is safe with me.”

“Don't call me that.” Zayn grumbles.

“Sorry. How old are you?”

“I'm 17.”

“When is your birthday?

“January. What's with twenty questions?”

Originally, it was to bug Niall but he couldn't seem to care. He's waiting by the door with his windbreaker on zipped-up halfway. It was even better with Zayn losing his temper. 

* * *

Cotton candy is the best thing anyone could have ever invented. It's the lightest thing anyone can eat, it melts on tongues, and the only bad thing about something as soft as cotton is that Niall can eat an entire one by himself and not be satisfied. One just isn't enough. Maybe five. That's right—he's had about five, sharing with Zayn because he should and he's set on getting another one. Maybe purple this time.

“Jade! You have to get it around the black bottle for a prize!” Leigh tells her by her ear. 

“I know!” She huffs. She has about three rings. If she gets it around the black bottle, she wins a large prize. She'll need three around the red bottles to get a medium prize, and one around the green for a small prize. Small prizes suck, and nobody wants keychains and little teddy bears to attach to backpacks. 

Niall was left alone to watch the two girls aim their rings at the many dozen bottles. Cotton candy in his hand, Zayn and Jordan just a foot away, talking to each other, Harry and his date making out like no one's bothered by it. Niall is, and Zayn is too busy listening to Jordan and Jade's date, Jed chatting on. He's not sure if he cares. It looks like he's trying to care but it hurts him in some way. So he nods and gives him that tight lipped smile he remembers from May. 

He should've known Zayn would be uncomfortable by the different presence around him. People he doesn't know, who think they're friends because they're all out on this one date. They haven't spent the same time Niall did getting to know Zayn. Especially Jordan—the one who pushed him into Jade's pool. He only knew Harry, and he was just getting real close that he trusted Tino in his hands. 

The girls actually won a large prize. It's a giant stuffed bear that Jade had chosen, bigger than her or Leigh or even Niall himself. 

“Oh! This is so groovy! I'm going to name him Niall.” Jade starts to laugh, hugging the bear around its neck.

Niall bites into his cotton candy, narrowing his eyes at Jade. “I'm honoured? I think?” 

“As if!” Leigh rolls her eyes at Niall. “Name her Leigh-Anne.” 

Niall doesn't fight Leigh on the idea. He laughs, taking another bite into his cotton candy.

His sweet tooth is always kicking when he's in Santa Monica Pier. There's just so much life and games here.

“Harry! Suki! Gross!” Jade and Leigh make a face. “Get a room.” 

Niall saw it too, and he shakes the image from his head. Spit swapping should totally be banned in public. Niall needs his eyes to see. 

Jade, Leigh, and Niall walk in their little trio while their dates stagger behind. Jade looked over her shoulder before she turned back to Niall, who's got a pack of licorice in the pocket of his jacket.

“I'm sorry, Niall.” She frowns, biting her lip; she's specifically whispering just for Niall. “I know you wanted to have this date.”

“It's okay.” Niall shrugs.

“You and Jade?” Leigh presses in awe. “I should have totally known when you guys hung out so much at the party.” 

“Yeah...” Jade sneers. “You would have if you weren't so invested in making Jordan jealous.”

“It worked.” Leigh felt really proud about it.

Niall tuned back to their conversation. “Do you guys want some Twizzlers?” He was too invested in imagining his date with Zayn to care. He had an entire image of how tonight's going to go. They were going to play endless games, try to win stuffed animals for each other when there's a high chance they probably wouldn't win anything. That was the initial plan.

“Hey Zayn!” Jade turns back to the guys behind them. They're walking very slow. “I hope you're not afraid of heights.”

Zayn begins to laugh quietly. “N-no. I'm great. Let's go, Niall.” He was thinking the same thing to have left Harry and Jordan's side so fast to have pushed Niall ahead from the small of his back to the Ferris Wheel.

It's a short queue to a free cart; not much of a wait that the others were free to roam the pier or beach. It was exciting to be out with Zayn, always is. He preferred his company a lot and it's considered sickening if anyone paid attention. 

“I hate heights.” Niall sighs. The view is breathtaking as the sun is setting. He looks to Zayn who seems to look at him like he understands. 

“I'm sorry. I thought you would because Jade—”

“It's okay. I'll live.” Niall starts to laugh out loud; even when his nerves are the reason why he's laughing so hard.

Throughout the ride, Niall watched the cars on the highway pass by, even the ones coming and going over the bridge. It comforted him long enough before he saw the bar over his leg and realized he was in a dangling cart hanging in the air. Beside him, Zayn was sitting back, humming to himself, not sure what song it is but it sounds nice.

“I know Harry, Jade, and your sister know about us.” Zayn laughs drily. “That's a lot of people that actually know about us, but—”

“Yeah?” Niall turns to him. God, he was so stupid to have told everyone closest to him that they were together. He wasn't thinking about Zayn. Of course the people he trusts won't tell anyone else about his sexuality, but Zayn didn't choose to tell anybody—not even Niall, it just came out of nowhere.

“Can we go on a real date?” Zayn smiles apologetically. 

“Like a real date? Just the two of us?” All of the sudden, Niall's nervous. They haven't not been alone before and it's nothing to think about and make a big deal out of. Though it's proven once a title is put on something, things change.

“Yeah?” Zayn lifts a brow at Niall. “Is it too much? We don't have to be out; we can do something at my house.”

“No.” Niall huffs and smiles afterwards. “We haven't really actually been alone on a date and it just makes me nervous.”

“I'm glad you're nervous.” Zayn pulls his hand over his lap. “It means you really like me.”

Niall scoffs, pulling his hand back so fast. It even shocked Zayn. “I'd walk away from you right now if we were on the ground for saying something like that.” His cheeks were beginning to heat up and he doesn't like it at all.

Zayn started to laugh right away and Niall joined in afterwards as he watched him. They were both laughing with their eyes squinting with tears at the corner. Nothing was funny and that was okay.

* * *

This summer, everyone really did try to get out of their house. It wasn't plans to hit the beach, people were working. Niall was working, and he was slowly paying Zayn for helping him with his car. Half his pay cheque always went to Zayn. It was really easy paying it off but at the cost of being on his guard all the time—hence the name, lifeguard—it somewhat balanced for him. 

But his friends were having the time of their lives going down Malibu, hitting up each other's pool to cool down. Every day, they were up to something and every evening, they'd always invite Niall even if he was really tired after work. 

A Friday after their group date, Harry was already asking about going out on another group date with everyone to go to Salvation Mountain which could be an entire day's trip. Niall wanted to say yes, however at the same time, he couldn't—they couldn't.

He has god to thank for not giving him shifts from Friday to Sunday. He can fill those days with sleep and he does. He sleeps in until 3pm, eating breakfast then.

In the evening, Niall and Zayn were going to have their real date. It was co-planned— they were going to have dinner that Zayn will make at his house, go to the arcade, and then they'll watch a movie at the drive-in. They can't fit any group dates in there and they don't want to.

Dinner was pasta—it made Niall the happiest guy, he's been craving some for so long. Zayn cooks it with more than just some regular; he's got sausages in there with jalapeños that Niall almost choked up on. 

They took Niall's car to the drive-in. It was a great night to go when they were showing the Blair Witch Project. Even better, the show time was at 10—it'll be way scarier. He had the roof up on his car in case it rained. And if that happened, they could easily roll back since they were parked close to the exit. In between them was popcorn that Niall might've over-seasoned with all-dressing powder, candy, and drinks.

Niall's parents thinks there's a sleepover happening at Zayn's house again tonight. His dad must've forgotten that Zayn's parents weren't home or maybe he doesn't care anymore that he's staying over for the night again.

 

From the arcade, they won a stuffed bear for winning skeeball. Niall put it to good use by hiding his face in it every time the ominous music started to play. 

“Really?” Zayn sounds so surprised. “I didn't think you'd be scared at all.”

“I'm not. I'm falling asleep.” Niall's hugs the bear tighter, shutting his eyes with a smile on his face.

“Liar.” Of course, the same time as someone's about to die, Niall hides his face and 'falls asleep'.

“This movie is so stupid.” Niall frowns at the massive movie screen. This is the first time he's actually watching the entire scene.

“Hey just admit it's scaring you and I can be the one you hide behind.”

“Wow.” Niall huffs. “Such a cliché. You must've wanted that—that's why you have so many scary movies back home.”

“No.” Zayn shakes his head. “That's trickery, I don't trick anybody.”

“Hey,” Niall's tone starts to sound deep as he looks at Zayn. “Just admit it that you like scary movies so you can have someone to cuddle with—like me, and I'll gladly get closer.” Closer meaning he'll lean over since the stick of his car and the snacks are in his way.

And of course, Niall's mocking Zayn now. “I'm not the one that's scared here.”

“Because you're not watching the movie.” Niall scoffs while his eyes roll. “You're too busy thinking about something else.” He saw him staring at Niall more than the movie. As he turned his head, Zayn would look at him with this smile on his face and rub his elbow. Niall's wondering what's on his mind for some time now.

Every little thing that he does—from the many tendencies that Zayn wants to hold his hand in public even when he can't to the punches on his shoulder just to seem like they're only friends, he's starting to see something else that's bittersweet. It might not say a lot of things to anybody but it's definitely loud in Niall's ear. If they could where eyes are watching everywhere and everybody didn't hate on people who were only different because of who they loved, then his hand would be in Zayn's and it wouldn't be a punch to the shoulder he'd get as congratulations.

If there's anybody he wants to keep secrets with, he's happy it's with Zayn. It would be hard to do alone. It's a secret they've got buried that'll kill them from the inside for many years. 

“I'm thinking about you,” Zayn laughs breathily, his lips close together so tightly that his nerves are starting to bubble up. It's noticeable to Niall from the way he's looking somewhere else; he doesn't have to be nervous about anything.

Zayn leans closer to him, turning his body so he could look at him straight on. He puts his hand over the crook of his neck while his free hand holds Niall's cheek. The corner of his lips are pulling into smile as he looks at Niall.

“And how much I like you."

Niall laughs softly. “Is it a lot, because I like you too.”

Their lips lock together immediately, Niall the first one to make a move before Zayn can even part his lips properly. When they pulled back, Niall tilted his head more to the left and let their mouths press together. Their mouths barely separate and even their tongues barely keep in their own mouths. It's loud like always, and it's so long before they can knock their mouths back together.

"Can I ask you something?" Niall pulls away, still close enough Zayn's kissing his lips. 

Pulling back to look at Niall is his way of answering Niall's question.

"You know those rumours about you running off last summer? What were you really up to?" It wasnt to spread rumours or lay them to rest; Niall really did want to know and somehow prove to everyone without really telling everyone that Zayn's not this dark, enigmatic guy they all think he is.

"I told you. I went on a road trip." Zayn laughs quietly. 

"Where'd you go?" Niall's head tilts in curiousity.

"I did the Route 66 road trip." 

"How long did that take?" 

"A month. And then I went up northern California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver." Then Zayn leaned in and continued to softly kiss his lips. "Anything else?"

"Did you really get shot in your hip?" Niall mutters in between their kiss.

"What? You're bugg'n." Zayn starts to laugh. "Of course not. What else have you heard about me?"

"You know martial arts?" Niall laughs at his own question.

"I wish." Zayn snorts. 

"Hmm..." Niall tries to think of another rumour to address. Then a grin started to form from his lips against Zayn's. "There was something about you having a crush on the student council president. What's the scoop on that?"

Zayn's face twisted in confusion. "Who's the student council president?"

"Are you kidding me?" Niall laughs.

"Is that you?" Zayn's eyes widened.

"You're really out of touch with the school system, are you?" Niall puffs. "Yes. I'm the president."

"In that case, then I have a big crush on him. I literally draw hearts over his face in the yearbook." Zayn starts to laugh even more. "I have a question for you now." Zayn's expression softened, and so did Niall's. "Am I more than a summer?"

"What do you mean?" Niall takes a sip from his drink. It's gone flat.

"Will you like me in September as much as you like me now in July?" Zayn smirks at Niall.

Grabbing his face, he tilts his head as they lean their foreheads together. "I'd like you much more in September than I do now."

"Good. Me too." Zayn slips his tongue in Niall's mouth. 

Niall's breathing is erratic and his hand can't seem to stay where it is without trying to hold his face so tight. Everything feels way too slow; he can feel both their lips being pushed so hard by one another, Zayn trying to take long breaths between the very short break between their eager mouths. He can hear the fast and short breaths, the way their lips smack when they part for barely a second, but the moaning—Niall's moaning—he can hear himself and he can feel Zayn trying provoke him with his lips, pulling back before Niall could close together. He'll feel them against his lips, brushing together with their mouths open—but not on him until he's teased him enough he'll shove his mouth on him until Niall can't do anything but moan down Zayn's throat.

"Final question." Niall smiles against Zayn's lips. "Wanna head back to your place?"

"To get more of this? Yeah."

* * *

Summer has it days where the rain doesn't stop, lightning starts to appear over the dark clouds and it always seems to match the mood that everyone is always in. 

Just a few days ago, Niall had gone over Zayn's house to visit as always—let the visitations from Zayn rest and let his start. Since his family was still away, Niall would often drop by with food that his mom made. It's usually only a small dish of carbonara or her creation of loaded potatoes and steak which can put many to sleep. In their free time, they'd watch a lot of television—mostly Fresh Prince and Daria. Tino would settle beside Zayn, sitting taller than any of them would be on the couch. He breathes loud like he has asthma and he watches T.V. even if he doesn't know that he is. Zayn would pet him, Niall would be eating carrot sticks and teasing Tino with food.

And if everybody was in the mood for a swim, they'd go in Zayn's pool and chill under the hot sun while the stereo played in the background. Harry came by the same day to chill too.

The thought just came up as soon as Niall popped out from under right in front of Zayn. He moved his bangs from his face and started to catch his breath. “Wanna learn how to swim?” 

“Alright.” Zayn took a step beside Niall. “What do I do?”

Niall turned and held Zayn's face. “What you're not gonna do is be afraid.” 

“I won't.” Zayn nodded, smiled confidently at Niall.

For starters, they worked on simple things like breathing and floating. Zayn was easily learning how to stay underwater and he was able to float on his back without Niall there to hold him up. Then they started doing pointed kicks until Zayn had a good idea on the different kicks he can do with the different swimming styles.

“We'll just go with the easy one first. Point your arms forward, head down, ears touching your shoulder while kicking your feet with your toes pointed. Minimal splashing.” Niall turned back to look at Harry. “Don't wanna get our friend's hair wet.”

“It's pretty, isn't it?” Harry flipped his hair and grins from his seat. 

There was a splashed that soaked Niall and made him flinch. All he saw was black and Zayn's adorable laugh.

“Does Tino want to swim too?” Zayn started to pet his shiny wet fur as he continued to paddle around them. “Sun too hot for you, buddy?”

“Tino, you rascal.” Niall began to rub the top of his head until he swam up to him and bumped his nose right into Niall's torso. “Let's move away so Zayn can swim.” 

He has his entire arm around his body—Tino was light in water but hard to contain when all he wanted to do was swim with Zayn. With his eyes glued closed, Tino couldn't see anything but lick Niall's arm as he held him back as Zayn swam towards the start of the deep end before he started swimming back.

“You're swimming!” Niall started to pump his fist in the air.

“I'm swimming.” Zayn laughed quietly and wiped his hair away from his face. “Tino, I'm swimming.”

“Wanna do something harder?” Niall was talking about the front crawl—one of the annoying things about swimming that took him a while to learn. It was the reason why he failed ultra 3 when he was younger. 

Niall demonstrated it slowly. Each move he had Zayn mimic as well, and they began to put it together until Zayn was paddling his arms rhythmically with his head coming up for a breath. It was good enough for someone who was learning under an hour.

Whatever fear Zayn had of water was gone. It held him back from being a natural swimmer. He went to the deep end without realizing—a whole ten-meter journey from the shallow end. He came back right after and popped up in front of Niall, pressing his eyes shut.

“My eyes are burning.” Zayn breathed out, gaining his breath back. “But at least I'm swimming now.”

“I know!” Niall started to laugh quietly in excitement. “I'm so proud. Tino can finally have a friend to swim with.”

“Thanks for teaching me.” Zayn let his arms snake around Niall's waist and he smiled right away and leaned in.

Suddenly, Harry made a weird abrupt buzzer sound from his throat. “No sexy stuff, boys.” Harry was waving his hand side to side. “Your PDA sickens me. It'll be moments before you start getting frisky and I'll be left here by myself.”

Zayn moved to the side to see Harry behind Niall. “Look away. Ten seconds.” 

Harry narrowed his eyes. “Ten seconds is a bit much, isn’t it?” 

“That's my lemonade you're drinking on my lounger in my backyard.” Zayn smiled politely at him. 

When Zayn said that, it didn't matter what Harry said anymore. Niall's mouth clashed with his as he wrapped his arms around Zayn's neck. He squeezed Niall's waist with his arm as the other one went up his back; he kissed him hard and didn't let Niall break for air. Niall moaned quietly with their mouths pressed together, and Harry's eyes haven't rolled back behind his head since this guy in his class asked what Big Ben was.

Harry's eyes suddenly widened to Niall's house where he heard the backdoor open. They're far enough to see over the fence and hedge to see his dad walking out with a magazine.

“H-Hey, Mr. Horan!” Harry yelled and raised his hand. Niall immediately pushed Zayn away with such force that it left a meter between them, which was impressive if Zayn saw it coming but he didn't so he's standing in shock while Niall starts to mouth his apology at him.

“Hi Harry.” Niall's dad waved the magazine at them before he walked further to the pool house.

Once he left, Niall let out a breath and shook his head.

“Tino, you should've seen how he pushed me!” Zayn's already out of the pool, sitting on the stone flooring with his legs crossed, rubbing Tino's head. “It was so strong, I flung back!”

Once Tino barked back and whined, that's when Niall felt just a bit insulted that Tino would believe the spite in his voice to cuddle his face into Zayn's chest.

“I panicked.” Niall explains. He dunks himself down in the pool and shoots back up just in time for Zayn to stick his tongue at him.

“I can't believe your parents let you stay here all by yourself.” Harry sounds like he's dreaming right now. “In a mansion. By yourself.”

“My parents actually trust me.” Zayn nods at Harry. “Besides, I can't throw parties. Niall's dad knows I'm here alone so if there's a party happening, he will definitely know.”

“You just need to plan it properly.” 

Zayn shakes his head and lies down on the warm ground. “No thanks. I'm alright.”

“That's because you live next door to your boyfriend. Some of us aren't privileged like you.”

“I'm sorry.” Zayn shut his eyes.

But Niall began to accuse Harry. “You live a street away!” 

“Not a door away!” He retaliated. 

“I'm sorry you live beside DiCaprio and not me!” Niall pulled himself out of the pool with his arms pushing him up. He sat beside Zayn and had his hand over his chest. 

Good days like that came by so often in the summer. But once it rains, the good wash away. Rain came down over their jackets that it became wet; it's become so heavy that their clothes are soaked and Niall can't tell if there are still tears on Zayn's face from the rain. The weather must be crying with him—nobody else is.

Zayn's parents aren't around to say goodbye like him, his sisters haven't even heard, and it'd be sad to tell his grandma. But nobody won't even care just as much as Zayn or his grandma ever will. Niall can't even try—it'd be an insult to try and care just as much as him about Toby.

It took Zayn until the end of Toby’s life that he was going to be going. He stopped eating but Zayn just thought the food he bought for him wasn’t appetizing. He slowly stopped being active and sat in quiet places like Zayn’s room when he’s not there.

“What do I do?” Zayn sobs into Tino's fur. He continued to pet his fur, wet under his hands even if it was feeling that felt weird under his hand.

“There's nothing you can do.” Niall fixes his leg on the next step on the stairs. “But you did what you could. I think he loved that you gave him the best of the last three months of his life.”

“But I want more than three months.” Zayn's voice cracked, and he began to weep into Tino again. 

Niall shut his eyes for a while and let Zayn kiss Tino on top of his head. “Tino, don't you want to hear how much Zayn loves you?” 

He was still there, barely holding on. He's been weak all morning, taking slow breaths every few seconds, leaving a long space in between them. Zayn's been sitting with him this whole time until it stops but he's going on. He's going on for him.

Zayn heard the message behind Niall's voice and he compelled himself to stop just long enough to get it out of his chest.

“You were always the first person I ever went to when I went over to grandma's house.” Zayn rests his head on Tino's body. “I didn't get along with our cousins but I got along with you. I was 7 when you knocked me over because you didn't see me. But every time I came over, you always seemed to come to me.” Niall smiled to himself as Zayn put his arm around Tino. “Damn dog... You were supposed to die five months ago but now you're dying beside me. You must hate me.”

“Go easy on him.”

“No... He's strong, he understands.” Zayn showed a smile for the first time. “Even if he wants me to cry, I love him.”

“Yeah, and I'm sorry I called you dog.” Niall needed to slip that in. “It's been killing me, Tino. And I'm glad you kept Zayn's secret. Everyone needs a friend like that.”

Zayn continued, letting the smile stay on his face. “Grandma will miss you. She'd tell us to straighten up and both our chins go up because we don't know who she's talking to. It might be me but you do it anyway.”

All day, they spoke to Tino, and filled his ears with stories. Zayn always had great ones to say even up until the heartbeats stopped and Tino couldn't hear them anymore. Niall hoped Zayn knew Tino heard him in heaven as they let time pass by.

* * *

Niall didn't see Zayn's face until a few days passed by since they had Tino cremated. Losing a friend always leaves a hole in everybody's heart that could never be fixed to be the same way as it was before. Eventually, as time ticks away, it will, but right now, it was okay to feel hurt and sad—there could be nothing worse than not feel anything at all.

He came at the end of Niall's shift. Aware of pets being banned from this part of the beach, Niall expected Tino to have come with him. He went to the beach all the time with Zayn. If he wasn't there, he always heard his name and it felt like he already was.

He has a backpack on—carrying two blankets, two sandwiches, and more than two juice boxes. What he has on for tonight, despite being exhausted on his last shift of the week before summer ends, it would be nice. 

With the water not as blue as Niall's eyes anymore, they were still at the beach, sitting at the shack, just outside the room without conversations popping up from one end to the other. If it did, silence was louder and longer, surprisingly the best thing Niall's ever done. 

Summer's ending which could only mean life won't be the same anymore. These past two months provided freedom and excitement that he always looks forward to. The one thing that's different from all the summer's he has spent is who he's ending it with who gives him so much doubt and fear.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” That's the first thing that Niall had to ask. Zayn shifted his head on Niall's shoulder the same time Niall fixed his arm around him.

“Answer that yourself first and I'll tell you mine.” Zayn replied quietly.

“Okay.” Niall laughed quietly. “Um, what do I wanna be? I wanna be... A lawyer, I guess.”

Then it was Zayn's turn. “I don't think I wanna be anything.”

“I think that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.” Niall tried to find meaning into his cryptic answer but his loud laugh must say something else. The only one he came up with is that he doesn't have a plan either.

“No it isn't.” Zayn smiled at him. “I don't wanna be anything. And that's okay.”

“Don't you wanna be a writer? You can be an English teacher, or even teach music history, be a doctor, a-a—” Niall stammers.

“Niall, I can be any of that. I can be a realtor, CEO of McDonald's if I want to be and I will be. But I'm not going to limit myself to one career.” Zayn shrugs. “I don't wanna be anything.”

“But aren't you scared?” 

“No. What should you be scared of?” Zayn advises him with such a soft voice. “We're young. So... let's be young.”

Niall nodded firmly, letting his fears be taken by the waves pulling back into the sea. “Okay.”

* * *

The school seriously needs to stop accepting any more students. There's not enough room for everybody here. The more people there are, the dirtier the washrooms are going to be and Niall doesn't want it smelling like 2-day old shit when he's pissing in a urinal that's probably got gum stuck all over it. Classic of Beverly Hills to have such accommodations in their school.

As well, it’s difficult to hear anything when the hallway is filled with new fresh niners for the seniors to pick on while the teacher believed to keep the door open for the late comers. He's already seen two running down the hall, chased by the football team—their backpacks massive and full, wobbling off their backs. Jordan is already in the office for dunking a kid in the fountain outside. Jordan's done worse but it seems like he's always pushing people in a pool of water.

Yet, Niall’s happy and that’s all that really matters. Freedom and long hours of sleep may have ended but some things will continue to thrive—his friends are still in the school, already making a riot out of their last year, his favourite teacher is his homeroom, and his neighbour is still his neighbour—sitting right behind him, resting his foot on leg of his chair.

To start off the class, the first thing their teacher asked is how their summer went. All Niall thought was that it went immaculately well for someone who had nothing going right for him the first time.

And with the class he’s the first one to share.

“I went to that drive-in theatre on Paramount Boulevard."

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading. appreciate comments and kudos!! they rlly mean a lot if u drop em


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